Too Much God . . . How Can It Be?
By Debbie Daniel (01/28/05)
I read the words: “Too much God, the President’s speech seemed rather heavenish . . . God-drenched, God invoked relentlessly” . . . and on and on my favorite columnist expounded with total denunciation of George W. Bush’s insatiable desire to call on the name of God in his 2005 Inaugural Address.
I sat in utter silence as I read Peggy Noonan’s description of Mr. Bush’s ambition of wanting to “end tyranny in the world,” as somewhere between “dreamy and disturbing.” She ended by saying, “Tyranny is a very bad thing . . . , but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon. This is not heaven, it’s earth.”
I have had the highest regard for Peggy Noonan, and though I realize, as she stated at the beginning of her article, that she had been awakened at 1:45 a.m. for a fire drill at her hotel, I wonder if seeing Warren Buffet sitting on the couch in the lobby wearing bright blue pajamas and a white hotel robe; James Baker in a trench coat and throat scarf, and the fact that she left her room so hurriedly that she remembered only her keys and eyeglasses but no shoes on her feet, might have affected her ability to be more reasonable about the President’s speech. If I didn’t know any better, I would believe she might have been extremely tired the next day, and saw the day a bit more dimly than the rest of us. In fact, I’d call it exhaustion.
I say all this, knowing full well that Peggy Noonan has been a writer for a long time and probably sees things the rest of us will never notice, but I can’t buy into the Inaugural music being “lame,” or that Mr. Bush’s comments were “over the top,” accusing the White House of “mission inebriation.”
The address, she said, “left her with a bad feeling and reluctant dislike.” She yearned for more “nuance” and added again that “this world is not heaven” and concluded her writing with this last thought: “One wonders if they (White House) shouldn’t ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.”
As I sat dumbfounded reading her analysis, I was dismayed at her take on one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard. I felt challenged by his words; I was impassioned to dream bigger; I felt proud to be an American, and when he finished, I was ready to move mountains.
But “mission inebriation?” “Too much God?” How can there ever be too much God?
Why the Bible itself is the most read book EVER – would you call it too much God? It’s ALL God!! People yearn for God every moment of every day.
Do we walk out of our homes daily and look around us seeing great murals of life; brilliant colors; the sight of mighty majestic mountains, or the constellation of stars in the evening sky and say . . . too much God?
As a newborn baby exercises its lungs upon entry into a presence outside the mother’s womb- do we say “too much God?”
As the morning sun rises in the east to the heartbeat of a new day, do we say, “too much God?” Do we ask the Almighty to “tone it down a bit?”
Oh, the miracle of God’s creation and the joy of verbalizing our love and gratitude for it all. Wasn’t that what the President was saying? Wasn’t that what the choir was singing? Wasn’t that what the man was singing in “God Bless America,” or the lady who lifted her voice to sing “Bless This House, Oh Lord we Pray?”
And for the number of times God was mentioned in George Bush’s Inaugural Address, how many more times was it mentioned in every song that was sung for the hour before the ceremony ever began, or every prayer that was prayed before, during, and after the ceremony? But let George Bush give honor, praise, and glory to God and he becomes “God-drenched?”
Are we going to stand before our creator on judgment day and say, “God, you were a bit too much to be included in our earthly rhetoric?” Oh, my goodness, I fear the day that I would ever tell God that He was “too much.”
I went to that same Inauguration, listened to the exact same speech, and found myself rejoicing with every utterance of God’s name, every credit given to the Almighty, and every allegiance to the Creator of our Universe.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Peggy Noonan, herself, might have suffered through some inebriation. And I want everyone to know that I admire this lady greatly, but I just can’t go along with her thinking on this one.
Come on Ms. Noonan, let’s face it . . . it’s not George Bush at all . . . it’s the name of God the Father; it’s the name of Jesus Christ the Son, and the reference to the Holy Spirit that rattles our nerves and gets to be “too much.”
Do you know how God loves for us to call on His name without ceasing? To call on His name in Prayer and Thanksgiving? To call on His name while our country is at war? If not now . . . WHEN?
And the excoriation about “this world is not heaven” and the possibility of “perfection in the life of man on earth is not?”
My only answer is that we might need to read our Bibles more often; particularly the Lord’s Prayer that says very distinctly: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
. . . ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!
Too much God? I think not.
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