The Obama victory rally video you didn't see

Before Barack Obama addressed 250,000 people in Chicago's Grant Park on Election Night, some other things happened. But you didn't see them because other than C-SPAN, no cable or broadcast network carried them. These other networks chose to put their talking heads on screen to talk over them.

These are the same networks that subject us to countless renditions of the national anthem and "God Bless America" at sporting events -- so why couldn't they have exposed America to the anthem and a rousing invocation by another longtime pastor friend of Obama's?

Here they are.

First, the anthem as sung by Kim Stratton (who has a brief Patti LaBelle moment there but recovers).

Then, the invocation by Phillip R. Cousin, former head of the World Council of Churches. The part of the prayer that's caught on microphone is quite lovely and reminds us that a lot of soaring rhetoric comes from that part of the church that certain Republicans find easy to demonize:

... Let us come together and bow our heads in a moment of prayer. Mighty and majestic God, thou dost lead us into (inaudible) the shadows of heaven, yet meets us on the mountaintop where joy thrills us. God of love and mercy and justice and peace, we come now acknowledging your majesty and your goodness and your kindness for our nation, having met the urgency of now, and bringing forth one who will lead us across the lines which have divided us so long.

Give to us a new hope. We pray for President-Elect Barack Obama. Give him the graces he needs, the graces of kindness and gentleness. The graces of a spirit of sensitivity that will enable him to reach across the lines which have divided and split our nation and bring wholeness and healing to the broken places in our national life.

Endow him with an unshakeable spirit. Lift him when his spirits are low and anchor him in a grace and a goodness that no world affair can shake nor tumble.

Be with his wife and his family, with his children, especially in this time of sorrow when he has lost a dear matriarch in his family.

Now, Lord, we pray for our nation. We pray that things that would keep us apart would be cast into the sea of forgetfulness. We pray that the shining light of a new day may be seen and we might have the courage and the motivation to follow this courageous man who has presented himself, recognizing the urgency of now, and filling us with the hope where we can change and where rights can become the order of the day and wrongs pushed aside; when justice will roll down like a mighty stream; and where love and equity and peace will flow from one end of our land to the other and where we will be the beacon light on the hill of joy for all nations to see.

Now bless him, Lord. And especially bless us so that we might follow and we might truly make the time when your kingdom might come on Earth. We thank you for the victory. We thank you for the joy. And let us not rest now on these laurels but lift our nation to a higher plane of excellence. In the matchless name of Jesus we ask this. Amen.

(Thanks to C-SPAN for the video!)