A liturgical drama performed by student and alumni members of Soul Purpose at the Inauguration of President Mark Alan Heckler as President of Valparaiso University, 17 October 2008.
Written and directed by John Steven Paul, (1951–2009). Professor of Theatre, Valparaiso University; Program Director, Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts.
Cast: Dan Cobbler (Class of 2005), Emily Weller (2009), William Milhans (2011), Sarah Beckerman (2010), Jay Michelson (2009), Briana Hallman (2009).
I Inauguration
Dan | What’s all this? |
Emily | This is the inauguration. |
Sarah | So what is an inauguration? |
William | All this. |
Sarah | But what does the word mean? |
Jay | Haven’t got a clue. |
Dan | (points at Jay as if introducing him.) Clueless! |
William | Must mean, something like, first. |
Dan | The first time President Heckler makes a speech to the faculty and students. |
Sarah | But it’s not… the first. That was at the Opening Convocation. So what does inauguration mean? |
Emily | Let’s take the word apart. |
Dan | OK, we’re in here for a start. |
Jay | Where? |
Emily | The Chapel of the Resurrection. |
William | Dedicated in 1959. |
Sarah | [points to William as if introducing him] The historian. |
Dan | And, –ation makes a verb into a noun, I remember that from Latin. |
William | Another Cicero! |
Sarah | But what about augur? |
Emily | I used that in a crossword puzzle yesterday. Augurs, actually. |
Sarah | What was the clue? |
Emily | Bodes. |
Jay | What does bodes mean? |
William | Later.... sing now. |
The assembly sings “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”
II Augury
Jay | In- |
Emily | -augur- |
Dan | -ation. |
Sarah | Augur? |
Emily | Augury. |
Briana | Augurer. |
Jay | You mean arguer? |
Emily | No, augurer. |
Dan | It’s augur, actually, and here’s the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary. “A religious official among the Romans, whose duty it was to predict future events and advise upon the course of public business in accordance with omens derived from the flight, singing, and feeding of birds…” |
Emily | Flight. |
William | Singing. |
Jay | Feeding. |
Sarah | Of birds! |
Briana | I’m like that. |
Jay | A bird lover? |
Briana | A Prophet. |
William | According to Aeschylus, the circling of twin eagles over Mycenae inaugurated the Trojan War. |
Sarah | I remember in high school we read Julius Caesar and he met a soothsayer on the way to the Senate. |
William | Turned out to be Caesar’s last day, right? |
Sarah | The soothsayer warned him not to go out in the Ides of March. |
Jay | How’d he know? |
Briana | Augury. Signs from birds. |
Dan | So an in-AUGUR-ation is for the birds then? |
Jay | What’d I tell ya? |
Sarah | From the birds, Dr. Dictionary. “To inaugurate is to take omens from the flight of birds, to consecrate or install after taking such omens and auguries.” |
William | Like when Noah sent a bird out to find dry land. A raven, I think. |
Briana | And the bird came back wet! |
Sarah | But then Noah sent out a dove. |
Emily | And the dove came back with an olive branch in its beak. |
Jay | And then Noah knew it was everybody out. Finally. Time to start up the world again. |
Dan | I wonder what the birds would tell us today. |
Jay | So, Briana…, You’re a prophet! What will happen next? |
Briana | More singing. |
William | [he sees it] And the entrance of a cross. |
University choirs sing an arrangement of “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” as the procession begins.
III Procession
Dan | In- |
Emily | -augur- |
William | -ation. |
Briana | Augur. |
Sarah | to take omens from the flight of birds, |
Emily | Hope
is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul |
Dan | Nice. Yours? |
Emily | Emily Dickinson’s. |
Sarah | Here come the professors. |
Jay | Their scarves make them look like birds. |
William | Walking birds. |
Dan | Those “scarves” are called “hoods.” |
William | Each color for a different major. |
Dan | They’re called “disciplines.” |
Jay | [Points to him as if to introduce him] The Expert! |
Emily | Look, there’s a cardinal. |
Dan | A purple finch. |
Sarah | A goldfinch. |
William | A mourning dove. |
Briana | An oriole. |
Jay | Lots and lots of red-winged blackbirds. |
Emily | All those black gowns. |
Dan | Lots of doctorates! |
Sarah | Why so many blue birds? |
Sarah | Lots of Doctors of Philosophy. |
William | An egret. |
Jay | A woodpecker. |
Emily | A hoopoe. |
Dan | A flamingo. |
Sarah | A swallow. |
Briana | A hawk. |
William | An owl. |
Emily | So much wisdom. |
Jay | A parrot. |
Dan | So many colors. |
William | A robin. |
Emily | So much hope. |
Sarah | A peacock. |
Briana | So much plumage. |
Emily | Soaring birds. |
Sarah | These birds will help us soar. |
Dan | These birds augur well. |
William | Good signs. For soaring. Indeed. |
The procession continues.
IV Witnesses
Dan | In- |
Sarah | -augur- |
William | -ation. |
Briana | Augur. |
Jay | Augurs. |
Emily | Augury. |
Briana | A good day for soaring say the signs. |
Sarah | Soaring? Where? |
Emily | To the clouds. |
William | To the cloud. The great cloud of witnesses. |
Jay | Hey wait! I’m not ready for that yet. |
Sarah | I’m glad to be here. As a witness. |
William | Under that cloud. In this place. |
Dan | Under these witnesses. |
Emily | And with these witnesses; these bird witnesses. |
William | And there are others. Hundreds. |
Briana | Thousands. Not just here. Outside. Along the “live stream.” |
Emily | And, in the cloud, the great cloud of witnesses. |
Jay | Who’s up there? |
Dan | Saints… |
Sarah | …and angels, |
William | …and presidents. |
Emily | Their names are… |
William | Francis D. Carley and Charles N. Sims |
Jay | Erastus Herman Staley and B. Wilson Smith |
Sarah | Thomas Bond Wood and Aaron Gurney |
Briana | Henry Baker Brown and Oliver Perry Kinsey |
Emily | Henry Kinsey Brown and Daniel Russell Hodgdon |
Dan | John Edward Roessler and Milo Jesse Bowman |
Jay | …and Horace Martin Evans. |
William | Then came the Lutherans: |
Sarah | William Henry Theodore Dau |
Briana | Albert Frederick Ottomar Germann |
Emily | John C. Baur |
Dan | John C. Baur, Albert Frank Scribner, Frederick William Kroencke, and Henry Herman Kumnick. |
Jay | All at once? |
Emily | A flock! |
William | Oscar Carl Kreinheder |
Dan | Walter George Friedrich |
Jay | Otto Paul Kretzmann |
Sarah | Albert G. Huegli |
William | And soaring still: |
Briana | Robert V. Schnabel |
Emily | and Alan F. Harre |
William | and the eighteenth president of Valparaiso University: Mark Alan Heckler. |
Jay | And that’s what this inauguration is all about, right? |
All | Right! |
The Inaugural Ceremony continues.
V Birds in the Windows
Following the ceremony:
Dan | As
the Psalm says “the days of our life are seventy years, |
|
Sarah | Or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; | |
William | Even
then their span is only toil and trouble; |
|
Emily | They
are soon gone and we fly away.” |
|
Briana | We fly away. | |
Jay | And stay. | |
Dan | We soar away. | |
Jay | But stay… like that little flock of birds, in the window, soaring away from God’s hands. | |
Dan | Where is it? | |
Sarah | Where are they? | |
Jay | In the windows. | |
Briana | Birds in the windows. | |
William | There! Way above that rooster crowing on the steeple top. See it? | |
Jay | There. | |
Sarah | And at the very top a dove like Noah’s dove. | |
Dan | With an olive branch in its mouth. | |
Emily | For peace... | |
Sarah | And the promise of home. | |
William | In the center there’s a phoenix, a symbol of the resurrected Christ. | |
Briana | Over on the right there’s an owl. | |
Jay | Way up on the right. It’s— | |
Emily | It’s another dove. | |
Sarah | Where? | |
Jay | Way up on the right. See? It’s— | |
Emily | It’s the Dove of the Holy Spirit. | |
Sarah | How do you know? | |
Dan | See the Pentecost flames surrounding it? | |
Emily | Windows full of birds. | |
Sarah | Why? | |
Briana | They’re signs of things to come. | |
Dan | They augur well? | |
Jay | They’re soaring. | |
Emily | We’re soaring. | |
Dan | They augur well. | |
Briana | And they’ll be here, in those windows, when we’re home! |