FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Obama as Godot

Rant Number 336 22 January 2009

President Obama’s apotheosis. Wondrous to behold. Yet, also a dangerous thing. Because Barack’s glory, like the sun, might be blinding. His beauty, grace, truth, eloquence and blah blah blah are such that they may overwhelm your critical reason. But perhaps the absurd may serve as a something of a corrective? Hmmm… ah, I have it! Bit highbrow, I admit it, but, like a prophet, a priest has to follow his inspiration.

Obama as Godot. God…what? Who he? The hero of Samuel Beckett’s existentialist and very funny play, Waiting for Godot. A bewildering classic. With a deceptively simple plot. Onstage, you find two tramps, Didi and Gogo. What are they doing? Nothing. Why are they there? They are waiting for someone. They have an appointment – or think they have - with a man - if he is a mere man. A man whose name is Godot.

In fact, Godot never arrives. Didi and Gogo talk, quarrel, sleep, dream, despair, laugh and agonise about the meaning of life, the crucifixion, carrots, smelly shoes, whether they should leave…but they don’t. Despite the frustration and the tedium, against hope, they keep hoping. They wait for Godot. This tenuous expectation is their raison d’etre.

Time is frozen. Yesterday is like today. Tomorrow is the same. Sometimes a boy messenger comes. ‘Mr Godot will come tomorrow’ he announces. But Godot does not – though of course, he might. Next day another boy turns up: ‘Godot won’t make it today but certainly tomorrow…’ and so on.

Obama is both like and unlike the shadowy Godot. Ever since he was elected, everyone has been expecting him. Yearning for him to arrive. To replace the pathetically obsolete Bush and to usher in the reign of the saints, the Second Coming, the salvation of the Middle East, mending the economy, redeeming the poor, healing the sick, all that and more. But I submit Obama has made a supreme, fatal mistake. Unlike Godot, he has actually arrived.

Godot’s appeal and power over Didi, Gogo, and indeed the imagination of playgoers and readers of Becket’s exemplary parable, lie in his absence. In his elusiveness. His mysterious identity. Does he stand for Dr Freud, aliens, the Communist Party, the Revolution, God, existentialist philosophy, science, your ideal friend and lover? I bet even Beckett did not know. Regardless, Godot’s mysterious absence precisely constitutes his strength. Never mind how far out and unreal your expectations, Godot is an ideal receptacle for them because a) his identity is mysterious and b) he never appears. Thus, he will never disappoint his wistful votaries. It is different with President Obama, alas. Because he has now come.

It is not that I dislike Obama, mind. On the contrary, the man’s charm is undeniable. (Even top American neo-nazis preferred him to McCain!) And his inaugural speech was good. Spare on rhetorical flourishes. Few lollypops. Sobriety combined with statesmanship. I enjoyed his quoting St Paul in I Corinthians 13:11, ‘put away childish things’. Although…at times it also put me in mind, horribile dictu, of certain sermons by Anglican bishops. If you can bring yourself to analyse such inanities, you will find in them something for everybody. A bit for the left, a bit for the right kind of thing. (The exact opposite of Jesus’ preaching, by the way.) Obama isn’t as bad as that, of course. He offered ‘the Muslim world a way forward’, at the same time sternly telling peddlers of ‘terror and slaughter’ that America will defeat them. Fair enough. A President of partly Muslim descent could hardly say anything different. That ‘Hussain’ after Barack is both a promise and a threat. But he has already phoned Olmert, along with three ‘nice’ Arab leaders, assuring them he wants to stop weapons smuggling to Hamas. Won’t be music to many ears in the Muslim world. But it was inevitable. Godot surely would never make that mistake. Inveigling himself in nasty tangles like that. Godot knows better. That is why Godot, unlike Obama, never turns up. Smart guy, eh?

There is worse to come for President Obama. The bad news is total. Predictable, certain and ineluctable, like the tides. Ultimately, whatever he does, his plans for improvement are doomed. Because of that accursed entropy. The second law of thermodynamics’ fault. That law states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases. Disorder will always get the better of order. By the time you have taken in this Rant, thus adding a bit of order in your intellect, the coffee you have drunk, the amount of heat, sweat your body has by necessity generated much more disorder than order. And that applies to everything else. The economy, Iraq, your home and the stars. Disorder in the end will always outdo order. Disorder is king of the cosmos. Not even charmer Obama can beat that one. Nor can anyone else. All our enterprises are doomed. Dura lex sed lex.

Is there hope? Perhaps. The second law of thermodynamics apparently does not hold always. Only in a majority of cases. So maybe Barack stands a chance after all. I maintain that chance is called Michelle. Yes, Michelle Obama, his wife. Whenever I look at Michelle, I feel reassured. She is the one who makes me believe her husband might beat Godot and entropy alike. Michelle’s face and demeanour fills me with confidence in the future. Why? Can’t rationalise it, folks. Her face, maybe. That determination, that intensity…makes her husband look like a pussycat, in comparison. Anyway, all I can say is that behind a good man there is always a woman. After all, even God needed a woman in order to get incarnate! Woman is the hinge around which the universe turns, I have no doubt. Especially this particular woman, Michelle. I bet you she will keep ghastly Hillary in check, for example. Even if, as the conspiratologists whisper, Hillary is plotting to take over soon by using her mob connections to bump off Barack. Michelle will make sure that doesn’t happen, insh’allah!

Come to think of it, that is why Beckett’s Godot is so negative. There isn’t a woman in it. A woman would have made all the difference. Vive la difference!

Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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