Dearly beloved, we may – or we may not – be gathered here for a solemn purpose, which, dearly beloved, can be debated, if not decided, later.
The Invocation, which was absent with an excuse for the past 12 months, made a triumphant return, sort of, at Monday evening’s City Council meeting.
A year after then-new Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells announced she was replacing the traditional invocation with a non-traditional opening called Reflections, a brief hoo-ha ensued.
A few days ago, this year’s new mayor, Mehaul O’Leary, declared that the Invocation would be restored.
Through it all, unflappable John Nachbar, the low-key city manager and voice of the Invocation/Reflections/Invocation, remained his same stoic self. He explained the connectivity between certainty and risk.
So did his one-minute commercials for wry, decidedly neutral, inoffensive observations on the passing scene.
In the aftermath, Mayor O’Leary said the renewed Invocation “just flew over. We didn’t make a big deal of it.”
In his most casual tone, he said that “I just asked the city manager to go ahead and give the Invocation.”
Mr. O’Leary said he did not intend for the Invocation to be religious, which is the traditional form. “I just didn’t like the way it had gone,” he said. “I didn’t think there was any need to take away something that did not need to be taken away,” he said. “It was an item that was ridiculous in the first place to be removed.
“I just brought it back. I didn’t want any pomp and circumstance around it,” Mr. O’Leary said.
“I just didn’t want to make a big deal of it so we would have another storm in a teacup in Culver City.”
