What Joan Baez said about crashing her newly bought Tesla.

"Yes, I did. God was speaking to me, because I got this car—literally, I was trying it out. I drove for 45 minutes, I drove home—boom: I backed into a big tree and it was destroyed."

I read that in this Vanity Fair article: "Joan Baez Thinks Timothée Chalamet Was 'Too Clean' to Play Bob Dylan/The iconic musician opens up about her detachment from Dylan, her political engagement, and her real thoughts on A Complete Unknown."

I read that out loud and said: "That's a kind of corny old humor — something happens and you say 'God is punishing me' or something.'"

Meade said: "Well, she does have that song, 'I Believe in God.'"

The song is "God Is God" ("Yeah, I believe in God and God ain't me.... And I believe in God but God ain't us.... But I believe in God and God is God")(written by Steve Earle, who is, I think, the background singer).

"Who made you feel seen when you were growing up?"

One of the questions proposed in "25 Questions to Bring You Closer to Your Mom" (NYT).

When did people start saying that they need to "feel seen"? I don't remember that from the period when I was growing up — the 1950s and 60s. Was there something else that we said that meant "feel seen"? Or is the desire to "feel seen" something new and perhaps transitory?

I did a "deep search" on Grok looking for the origin of the phrase and the closest thing I found to an answer was that it became a common phrase in the last 15 years, perhaps connected with social media. For example: "21 Painfully Relatable Memes That'll Make You Feel Seen" (Cheezburger).

ADDED: "I need to feel seen" strikes me as such a beta thing to say. I told that to Grok, which I'd accidentally left in "deep search" mode, and I think I got man-shamed:

The user’s observation that "I need to feel seen" strikes them as "beta" reflects a specific cultural lens, particularly within internet slang where "beta" is used pejoratively to describe behavior seen as weak, submissive, or overly sensitive, especially in contrast to "alpha" traits like dominance or stoicism. This perception is rooted in certain societal norms around masculinity, particularly in online spaces where traditional masculine ideals are valorized.

IN THE COMMENTS: Kirk Parker said: "The first recorded usage is in Genesis 16:13." I look it up: "She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.'" "She" = the slave Hagar, mother of Ishmael.

"I can tell you... '16 was providential. That was the hand of God.... The pandemic and the stealing of the 2020 election was also the hand of God."

"At the time, it didn't seem that [way] but if we had gone right into a second term, it would have been like trench warfare. It would have been like the Western Front in World War I, just two sides dug in, and they kind of had Trump surrounded. God's hand worked that we would step back.… We had the time to regroup. Trump had the time to think.... You had those four years of preparation."

Said Steve Bannon.

That made me think about something Ross Douthat said in that podcast blogged 2 posts down: 

"In his book 'The Paradox of Choice,' psychologist Barry Schwartz popularized the idea that too many choices produce paralysis and then often discontent."

"Here, instead of choice, we had constraint. And in constraint I discovered a new kind of freedom.... It was one of the last times I fully got into a book, in this case Norman Mailer’s 1,056-page masterwork 'The Executioner’s Song,' so immersed that I forgot there was a pandemic in the first place. I mostly ignored dating apps, which are as awful as they are necessary because everyone else is on them. But now, for a moment, there was no real shame in being alone. For the first time, I didn’t feel guilty about feeling lonely.... I thought more deeply about my life, and how I wanted to live. But I also did things I always said I wanted to do but — short of a natural disaster — knew I never would. Like watch the films of the Swedish existentialist director Ingmar Bergman.... Yes, it was a bit masochistic, but watching 12 of his films in rapid succession ended up being an unusual highlight of an unusual year. I also live-tweeted the experience, perhaps as a way to make a solitary adventure less so...."

Writes Shadi Hamid, in "Missing the solitude of covid," one essay in a WaPo collection of 5 essays looking back on the lockdown — free access link.

1. "And in constraint I discovered a new kind of freedom" — reminds me of the line in The Book of Common Prayer, "whose service is perfect freedom." The "who" is, of course, God. The service is chosen. The lockdown was imposed from the outside and it wasn't anything like God. But it's interesting to contemplate the difference... and to ask Grok to sketch out an "Ingmar Bergman" screenplay on the subject. 

2. "The Paradox of Choice" — yay! Glad to see that come up again. I've got a tag for it. I made that unusually specific tag because I could see this is what "they" have in store for us: a world without choice and with an induced and cultivated belief that the constriction of choice is the key to happiness. We practiced within the lockdown and "they" got to see how well we did.

3. "The Executioner’s Song" — I wrote a law review article about it long ago: "Standing, In Fluffy Slippers." That was back in 1991 when I believed I could find a new way to write within the genre of law review articles. Mailer's book is about Gary Gilmore, who, condemned to death, chose the firing squad. How's that for a "Paradox of Choice"? Oddly enough, just last Thursday a man was executed — in South Carolina — by firing squad. Could have picked lethal injection. Picked firing squad.

4. I like that the essay writer, locked down, eschewed dating apps but embraced live-tweeting. He didn't want to feel so all alone. 

"Maybe God doesn't speak to us because we would (in our weakness) find Him boring."

That's the 4th prompt I gave to Grok just now. The first 3 were:

1. Summarize this article

I gave a link to the NYT article "Can God Speak to Us Through A.I.? Modern religious leaders are experimenting with A.I. just as earlier generations examined radio, television and the internet." 

2. Give me a one sentence answer to the question posed in the headline

3. So the article is incredibly boring compared to the headline

That reminds me. Soren Kierkegaard wrote: "Boredom is the root of all evil — the despairing refusal to be oneself." Blogged here in 2006.

Maybe you're one of those people who cue up "The Bible in a Year" podcast and listen to "Day 1: In the Beginning" on New Year's Day. If so, you've just listened to the story of creation and the interpretation that God "wasn't lonely":

"I’ve been writing lately about how American politics seem to have moved into a new dispensation — more unsettled and extreme..."

"... but also perhaps more energetic and dynamic. One benefit of unsettlement, famously adumbrated by Orson Welles’s villainous Harry Lime in 'The Third Man,' is supposed to be cultural ferment: 'In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.' There are certainly signs of ferment out there, in technology, religion and intellectual life. But I’m worried about pop culture — worried that the relationship between art and commerce isn’t working as it should, worried that even if the rest of American society starts moving, our storytelling is still going to be stuck...."

Writes Ross Douthat, in "Can We Make Pop Culture Great Again?" (NYT).

I got totally sidetracked by "dispensation." Here's my interaction with Grok that convinced me that Douthat didn't make a weird word choice. It's an excellent word choice, and I enjoyed reading about the religious meanings of "dispensation," including

We experienced the longest darkness in Indiana...

... in Vincennes, Indiana (a place named after François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, who was burned at the stake in 1736, "during the French war with the Chickasaw nation").

His name glows on a vibrant mural:

I don't know if this is the town's official motto, but we talked a lot about it: "Where everyone fulfills their God-given purpose!"

It seemed to be a grandiose claim, but I said maybe the people interpret God's requirements narrowly, so that it's not understood to be terribly difficult. My son Chris, texting, said, maybe God does not give them any particularly challenging purpose. I contemplated whether Chris was saying something different from what I'd just said and decided he certainly was. My idea was that people are self-serving, and his idea was that God was easy-going and pretty darned nice. Hearing that, Meade noted that "fulfills" could mean that citizens are simply wherever they are in a process of fulfilling.

We walked through the festival atmosphere on historic Main Street, by the Wabash River, but given the hubbub and live, loud rock music, we kept moving until we arrived at the memorial for the men who died in the War of the Union....

We set up on the lush grass by the county courthouse, which looked like this at 3:01:51 — 3 minutes before the beginning of the total eclipse:

And here it is, at the very beginning of the totality:

Thanks to Vincennes for hosting us and many others. The show was free and the number of dollars we spent was equal to the number of minutes of the totality of the eclipse. Meade bought a pulled pork sandwich at a food truck:

The text at the pig silhouette in the lower right corner of the truck deserves contemplative comparison to the aforementioned "Where everyone fulfills their God-given purpose!" It says: "Every butt loves a rub."

"We love what we take care of, and we take care of what we love. Instead of groaning at the task of treating my cast-iron skillet..."

"... I now treat it as a fulfilling act of service; I know that my time seasoning it with salt and oil will affect its life span and the palate of future generations. I scrub away at the hand-me-down dinnerware from my father-in-law, and I’m connected to him. In an unexpected way, pride has seeped into my kitchen work. Cleanliness is a matter of principle.... Carl Jung once said, 'Modern man can’t see god because he doesn’t look low enough.' Will you find God in your kitchen sink?"

Writes Tyler Shane, in "You don’t need to meditate. Just wash your dishes by hand" (WaPo).

A sense of profundity attaches to one of my cast-iron pans — the one that I grew up hearing called the "spider." It is, I believe, older than I am. I use it all the time and can't imagine what one might do to it that would make it need any more seasoning. Is that low enough?

"Since I have to wrap up soon, do you have any strategies for ending an interview well?"

Michael Schulman asks Dick Cavett at the end of "Dick Cavett Takes a Few Questions The legendary television host talks about his friendships with Muhammad Ali and Groucho Marx, interviewing Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, and finding a new audience on YouTube" (The New Yorker). 

Cavett answers:

Often I would do it very badly. I would rush it, hadn’t saved enough time. I almost called a guest by the wrong name but caught it, thank God, or whatever gods may be. What’s that from? “I thank whatever gods may be.” It’s a poem that’s often recommended as good religious thinking. “I thank whatever gods may be for my indomitable soul”? Hmm.

I'm agnostic on whether God is toying with Jordan Peterson.

I’ve always been pretty agnostic on Peterson. But this is not good. If a leftwing icon was asked “Do you believe in God” and they answered “It depends” on the meaning of “you,” “do” or “believe” (nevermind “God”) the mockery from many Peterson fans would be wild. https://t.co/ZlyQooFZmm

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) October 19, 2022

It's not just Jonah Goldberg. Peterson is trending on Twitter and it's mostly about this clip. We're living in a time when your worst few seconds will be ripped out of context and held up to discredit you. Better never to speak on camera at all than to risk creating one of these horrible clips to be used against you. 

We're created a mediascape where only the cocky and reckless will speak freely. Ironically, Peterson will be one of those people. Everyone else will shrink out of public view.

Putin says his goal is the "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine" — defending "civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation" from "persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime."

According to "Putin announces a ‘military operation’ in Ukraine as the U.N. Security Council pleads with him to pull back" (NYT). 

Mr. Putin cast his operation both as an attack on “Nazis” in Ukraine, as well as rejection of the American-led world order. Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO, he said, represented a dire threat to Russia. He evoked the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 to make it clear that he viewed the West as morally bankrupt.

“For 30 years, we deliberately and patiently tried to reach agreement with the NATO countries on equal and indivisible security in Europe,” Mr. Putin said. But Russia was met, he said, with “cynical lies” and “blackmail” on the part of the West. The American-led West, he said, represented an “empire of lies.” ...

“You and I know that our strength lies in fairness and truth, which is on our side,” Mr. Putin said [addressing the Russian people]. “And if this is so, then it is hard not to agree that it is strength and readiness to fight that are the foundation for independence and sovereignty.” 

I don't think Biden has responded to the charge of Nazism, militarization, genocide, and persecution. He simply blames Putin for choosing to go to war and notes that war brings "death and destruction." That works as an argument against ever fighting a war — including a war against genuine Nazism, militarization, genocide, and persecution. 

I would like to hear a strong, clear statement detailing what's wrong with Putin's justification of his war. I would like something more erudite and fact-based than saying it was "bizarrely" asserted. From Biden's February 23rd speech:

Yesterday Vladimir Putin... bizarrely asserted that [two] regions are no longer part of Ukraine and they’re sovereign territory... Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belong to his neighbors?

I'd like to hear Biden address Putin's reasons, which sound like the kind of reasons American leaders give when they invade other countries. Where's the sophistication that was supposed to come with the ousting of Trump? I can do without rhetorical questions involving "the Lord."

"I will stand in this breach."

Said President Biden, in his speech yesterday. You can encounter the line in context at the end of my previous post. 

This post is to examine the idiom. What are we talking about when we say "stand in the breach"? I think of Shakespeare's "Once more unto the breach." It's about taking up a warlike frame of mind:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood...

So "the breach" is a broken open place in some fortifying wall, and the idea is to move through that space, into battle. If they don't move forward, the argument is that they will pile up dead until their bodies fill that space — close the wall up.

But that's about using the breach as an entry point into battle, not just standing there, which seems to be a poor military tactic.

From about the same time period, there is the King James Version of the Bible (1611), Psalm 106:23:

A new video on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the release of "My Sweet Lord."

 

 

AND: I put the video up before watching it. Now, I've seen it, and what did it mean? The lyrics of the song are clearly about looking for God. So we see a pair of investigators with scanning devices in a library/bookstore, searching, and then in a crowded movie theater, searching. 

I had to presume they were looking for God. But it turned into looking at celebrities, and this was kind of a mystery too, not the profound mystery of the search for God, but a mystery nonetheless, because all the celebrities I have a shot at recognizing are old and radically changed from the version I know, and all the ones appearing in their famous form, the young ones, are not famous to me. 

But perhaps that's the message: If you were looking at God, would you see Him? I really wanna see you, Lord... 

In the end, the investigators tell each other that they didn't even hear what song was playing. That is, they didn't hear the lyrics about searching for God. But they turn on the car radio — streaming device? — and "My Sweet Lord" is playing there too. The song is everywhere. God is everywhere. It takes so long... it won't take long.

"If the enemy can separate Kimye, there’s going to be millions of families that feel like that separation is ok… but when God brings Kimye together..."

"... there’s going to be millions of families that are going to be influenced to see that they can overcome the work of the separation, of trauma the devil has used to capitalize to keep people in misery while people step over homeless people to go to the Gucci store." 

Said Kanye West, quoted in "Kanye West rants he ‘needs to be back home’ during visit to Skid Row" (NY Post).

"The narrative God wants is to see that we can be redeemed in all these relationships. We’ve made mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve publicly done things that were not acceptable as a husband, but right now today, for whatever reason — I didn’t know I was going to be in front of this mic — but I’m here to change the narrative.... I’m not letting E! write the narrative of my family. I’m not letting Hulu write the narrative of my family.… I am the priest of my home.... I have to be next to my children as much as possible. So, when I’m out the house, I’ve got a house right next to the house. I’m doing everything to be right next to the situation.... I’m trying to express this in the most sane way, the most calm way possible, but I need to be back home."

His stream of consciousness is interesting and revealing, but it's hard not to think he — not Satan, not the "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" script writers — created his predicament and that he's got no special access to God. 

The priest of my home... a house right next to the house... Interesting, but pathetic.

ADDED: His theory seems to be that God will intervene in the events of his life with Kim Kardashian because God knows what influencers they are. If they get back together, the little people will — on their own power — work to get their lives together. God is efficient that way, you see. 

This NYT headline displays an unabashed belief that censorship is desirable and expected, as if the tradition of freedom of speech has evaporated.

With dismay, I am reading "On Podcasts and Radio, Misleading Covid-19 Talk Goes Unchecked/False statements about vaccines have spread on the 'Wild West' of media, even as some hosts die of virus complications."

Talk goes unchecked! 

Freedom of speech is an artifact of the "Wild West," not the foundation of our republic!

Well, the New York Times is free to print such things, misleading though they are. The NYT is trying to induce private companies to undertake censorship.

[One] podcast is available through iHeart Media... Spotify and Apple are other major companies that provide significant audio platforms for hosts who have shared similar views with their listeners about Covid-19 and vaccination efforts, or have had guests on their shows who promoted such notions.

“There’s really no curb on it,” said Jason Loviglio, an associate professor of media and communication studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “There’s no real mechanism to push back, other than advertisers boycotting and corporate executives saying we need a culture change.”...

That would be a culture change in favor of censorship, and the NYT is doing what it can to instigate demand for that change.

“People develop really close relationships with podcasts,” said Evelyn Douek, a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. “It’s a parasocial medium. There’s something about voice that humans really relate to.”

There’s something about voice that humans really relate to. Yes, the spoken word feels more like a real relationship than the written word, but that makes it more dangerous, it seems. More "parasocial." 

I know I like to stick with the written word. It feels more rational. It's easier to pull apart and critique, at least as long as the private company known as Google allows me to continue — continue my parasocial life — and doesn't virtual-murder me. 

"The museum appeared at first to be a collection of capitalist artifacts. A large figure of the Jolly Green Giant flanked Poppin’ Fresh, of Pillsbury fame... shared space with... the Michelin Man."

"But Ms. Weis’s intent was to link our conceptions of these pop-culture figures to the human need to mythologize; she asserted that our Fates, Furies and giants were not left behind in Greece or Egypt, but rather transposed to our own culture.... One of her favorite pieces in the museum was a plastic model of Elsie the Cow, the character used to sell dairy products in advertisements for the Borden Dairy Company, which later branched out into chemical products, including glue. Elsie then acquired a husband, Elmer, who sold the well-known white glue named after him. Their domestic squabbles formed the background of 20th-century ad campaigns selling Borden products. Mr. Whiting compared their dynamic to that of Hera and Zeus in Greek mythology, the archetypical contentious marriage. 'We’re not saying they’re deities,' Ms. Weis said... 'But the same relationship holds. They will live beyond their generation because people revere their character by buying the product.'"

From "Ellen Havre Weis, Whose Museum Put Pop Into Mythology, Dies at 64/The Museum of Modern Mythology, in San Francisco, which she helped found, posited that advertising figures have emerged as the pre-eminent mythical figures of our time" (NYT).

As I mentioned on this blog in its first year, there's a member of my family who, when he was rather young, believed for quite a while that the image on the cans of Green Giant peas and corn in the cupboard was God. I had to ask him why did you think that was God? It's not as if anyone ever encouraged him to think the Jolly Green Giant was God, and he'd never questioned the adults about who this laughing green entity is supposed to be. The image itself conveyed the sense that this is God. 

Which image? It was the 1980s, so pick out 1980s Giant:

Yes, he's depicted with a scarf there. I'm going to presume that's the image for frozen vegetables. The "God" impression came from cans. I believe the giant stood spread-legged above a sunny farm field, wearing only his leafy tunic, crown of leaves, and elf shoes. Does that say "God" to you?

By the way, I fear for the human woman he took up with in 1945. The God Giant needs to stay in his heaven, presiding over the crops, and not consort with mortals. Those ears of corn and pea pods are far too large for the lady, whose head is the size of one of those peas.

And the 1970 giant is so 1970s, clearly influenced by the hippie movement. Imagine a God who follows transitory, regional human trends... and who's squirmily bashful about his achievements. A modest God!

"Social media influencers are probably one of the worst things to happen to our society"/"Getting paid to be an influencer. Now there's an important, socially relevant job."

Those are the top 2 highest rated comments on the NYT article "The App With the Unprintable Name That Wants to Give Power to Creators/Fed up with the imbalance between online influencers and brands, Lindsey Lee Lugrin and Isha Mehra created a platform to change that."

We see the very pretty Lugrin and Mehra posing with sun-dappled foliage and poised over laptops in a minimalist office space.

The "unprintable name" is easy to print. Here, I'll print it for you: "Fuck You Pay Me." Apparently, influencers are underpaid for the influencing they do for brands...

Brands have long had an upper hand with influencers. Most creators operate without a manager or an agent. There are no standard pay rates for creating a post for a brand or running digital advertising alongside their videos and posts. Brand deals are negotiated through a messy mix of direct messages and emails.

 ... and this website aims to intervene. The main idea seems to be to provide a place where "influencers" can describe their experiences with different brands, and that might help them make better deals. But aren't the influencers in competition with each other? Doesn't everyone want everyone else's deal? Where's the sharing? Isn't there always another newer, younger influencer who will undercut your price and look cuter doing it?

Inside the creative process... God:

... a brilliant TikTok...

"Once the human tragedy has been completed, it gets turned over to the journalists to banalize into entertainment...."

"... I think of the McCarthy era as inaugurating the postwar triumph of gossip as the unifying credo of the world’s oldest democratic republic. In Gossip We Trust. Gossip as gospel, the national faith. McCarthyism as the beginning not just of serious politics but of serious everything as entertainment to amuse the mass audience. McCarthyism as the first postwar flowering of the American unthinking that is now everywhere. McCarthy was never in the Communist business; if nobody else knew that, he did. The show-trial aspect of McCarthy’s patriotic crusade was merely its theatrical form. Having cameras view it just gave it the false authenticity of real life. McCarthy understood better than any American politician before him that people whose job was to legislate could do far better for themselves by performing; McCarthy understood the entertainment value of disgrace and how to feed the pleasures of paranoia. He took us back to our origins, back to the seventeenth century and the stocks. That’s how the country began: moral disgrace as public entertainment. McCarthy was an impresario, and the wilder the views, the more outrageous the charges, the greater the disorientation and the better the all-around fun."

From "I Married a Communist" by Philip Roth.

ADDED: From the Wikipedia article "Stocks": 

Public punishment in the stocks was a common occurrence from around 1500 until at least 1748. The stocks were especially popular among the early American Puritans, who frequently employed the stocks for punishing the "lower class." In the American colonies, the stocks were also used, not only for punishment, but as a means of restraining individuals awaiting trial. The offender would be exposed to whatever treatment those who passed by could imagine. This could include tickling of the feet. As noted by the New York Times in an article dated November 13, 1887, "Gone, too, are the parish stocks, in which offenders against public morality formerly sat imprisoned, with their legs held fast beneath a heavy wooden yoke, while sundry small but fiendish boys improved the occasion by deliberately pulling off their shoes and tickling the soles of their defenseless feet."

In the book of Job, we see God accused of using stocks: "He puts my feet in the stocks, he watches all my paths."

Job comes up in "I Married a Communist" — at the end of a rant about betrayal:

Professionals who’ve spent their energy teaching masterpieces, the few of us still engrossed by literature’s scrutiny of things, have no excuse for finding betrayal anywhere but at the heart of history. History from top to bottom. World history, family history, personal history. It’s a very big subject, betrayal. Just think of the Bible. What’s that book about? The master story situation of the Bible is betrayal. Adam—betrayed. Esau—betrayed. The Shechemites—betrayed. Judah—betrayed. Joseph—betrayed. Moses—betrayed. Samson—betrayed. Samuel—betrayed. David—betrayed. Uriah—betrayed. Job—betrayed. Job betrayed by whom? By none other than God himself. And don’t forget the betrayal of God. God betrayed. Betrayed by our ancestors at every turn.

What should sound weird?

I'm reading "Amanda Gorman showed us how civic ceremonies can have prayer without invoking God" by Kate Cohen (WaPo): 

Hearing a grown-up ask God for something should sound as strange to me as hearing him plead with Santa or Superman. “We seek your faith, your smile, your warm embrace,” should sound weird. But it doesn’t. I was raised in America, where pledging allegiance “under God,” spending money stamped with “In God We Trust” and ending speeches with “God Bless America” are so automatic that “gracious and merciful God” sounds like “blah blah blah.” 

But is “blah blah blah” what we want from our ceremonial language? Leaving aside constitutionality — as, unfortunately, the courts continue to do — unless every American actually believes that we need to ask a supernatural being for help, then appealing to God robs these prayers of their rhetorical power. Either because they sound meaningless or because what they mean, fundamentally, is that He is the agent of change, not we.

Cohen argues that there are ways to elevate and solemnize civic occasions that don't use God. As you can tell from the title of her column, Cohen indulges in the adoration of the young woman who read a poem at the inauguration. I did not read or listen to this poem so I have nothing to say about the poet other than that the people who are overly enthused about her feel patronizing — if not idolatrous — to me. Which is why I didn't watch. I didn't want to be soppy or judge-y.

But Cohen's point is that the poet was able to use words like "The new dawn blooms as we free it" and "there is always light" to create a religion-y vibe. So there is a way, if that's what we want and need. Leaving God out is what Cohen says she needs "to make eternal truths shimmer." 

But verbiage like "new dawn blooms" and "there is always light" would in time sound just as "blah blah blah" as "gracious and merciful God." It's a government ceremony. It doesn't really matter. Find your deep inspiration away from government. That's the real separation of church and state.