While the world began to digest President Obama’s historic speech in Cairo, I spent the morning with two colleagues – Lutheran minister Rev. Tom Duke and Muslim scholar and leader Imam Dr. Hamdy El-Sawaf, both veterans of interfaith dialogue work in the Twin Cities,  leading the end of a four-day seminar on interfaith dialogue at Luther Seminary’s Kairos Continuing Education program.  All three of us keenly felt the excitement of the day; we savored the rich conclusion of our week of teaching, then rushed to our computers to read the speech.  Our group of eighteen people stood in a circle at the end of the seminar, affirming our deepened commitment to the peace-building work of interfaith dialogue in our community.  And we knew that something momentous had happened in Cairo.

Full disclosure:  I have been a Barack Obama fan since the very beginning.  I am overwhelmed by the remarkable giftedness of the man: prodigious intellect, personal charisma and faithful humility, interpersonal and rhetorical skill and emotional intelligence, all in one man, not to mention his being an African-American.  He moves me deeply, a person blessed with so many gifts and such clear vision. I was certain that he would work wonders in Cairo.  To the extent that a single speech could convey a glimpse of a new beginning in the relationship between Islam and the West, I believed he could do it.  I was not disappointed.

The speech was a rhetorical tour de force, one of his best.   Powerful and prayerful, smart and wise, specific and visionary, this was Obama at his best, and exactly what the world needed to hear.  America’s beloved president, whose own life story bridges faiths and continents, served as a bridge, modeling what a more peaceful world could look like.  He spoke with what I believed was genuine respect for the crucial role of Islam in the history of the West and the place of Muslims in contemporary America.  He spoke with keen awareness of Muslim sensibilities about Western colonialism, about God-consciousness, and about the yearning for peace.  I hope that Obama’s powerful use of traditional Islamic language (e.g. the greeting of “asaalamu alaykum,” and the phrase “peace be upon him” when mentioning the Prophet Mohammed) resonated deeply in the heart of Muslims. I am reminded of Pope John Paul II’s great symbolic act of placing a note of prayer in the Western Wall in 2000, speaking of reconciliation of estranged family members in riveting Biblical language (“Ani Yosef achicha,”  “I am Joseph your brother,”).  These empathic gestures marked an historic turning point in Jewish-Christian relations.  Such symbolic behaviors do not change everything – life is not that easy.  But they can contribute to transformation in relationships and attitudes.

Like many, I held my breath to hear how his words today might reverse the ever more destructive spiral of negative relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.  To my mind, he got it exactly right.  He spoke the words that both sides needed to hear to trust his support and challenged both sides in balanced, nuanced measure.  He affirmed both the durability of American bonds to Israel and the intolerable reality of Palestinian suffering.  He unequivocally rejected Palestinian use of hateful rhetoric and violent struggle against Israel, and he powerfully called on Israel finally to cease building settlements, insisting that the Netanyahu government fulfill Israel’s long-standing commitment to a two-state solution.  Perhaps the central sentence – obvious, profound, and so challenging to both sides: “Just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.”  I sense that this sentence will become a mantra as Obama and his administration proceed with the hard work that begins after the glow of the speech has passed.

Perhaps some will be disappointed that I have expressed no hard-nosed critique.  I cannot offer it.  Because for me, the experience of the speech was an experience of prayer.  I pray that Obama’s historic journey to Cairo will be remembered as the work of a great peace-maker, like Anwar Sadat’s transformative trip to Jerusalem, and that today’s speech will be remembered as a great ode to peace, like Yitzhak Rabin’s last speech (but, God help us, may Obama be safe from harm).

I can only close with our President’s own prayer for peace: “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth.”  I, for one, pray for Obama’s safety and success.