Here's a WSJ article about Oprah, and the Prayer Service at Yankee Stadium on Sunday....It was a wonderful service, and she did a great job IMO....
The Great Consoler
Three cheers for Oprah Winfrey.
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 12:01 a.m.
I will be pilloried for saying this, but say it I will. I think that Oprah Winfrey--Oprah, she of the single name, Oprah, the great consoler--is a national treasure.
Oprah was the master of ceremonies for Sunday's prayer service at Yankee Stadium, where--expertly and endearingly--she managed to be both larger than life and understated. Her tone was perfectly pitched, as was her presence; it was as if she had been telling herself all afternoon, willing herself through the service, to be only a complement to the religious men and women present at the stadium, and not their celebrity overshadow.
It would be facile to knock Oprah for being at the service. "What on earth must Cardinal Egan have thought," a world-weary friend of mine asked me, "when he saw Oprah there?" Without wishing to speak for the cardinal, I venture the view that he was delighted. For he must have known, in an instant, that her presence on the podium, far from devaluing the spirituality of the occasion, in fact helped his message reach a greater swath of the American heartland than it would have without her.
Granted, there are aspects of the culture in which Oprah thrives--easily parodied as the culture of the tawdry television confessional--that aren't always edifying. Yet Oprah transcends this culture. Unlike many others from her milieu, she is neither a vulgarian nor a sensationalist, but someone who comes across as very human in scale, who exists today in essentially the same form as she did before she was packaged into a phenomenon. So you feel, when she talks, as if a friend next door is talking to you, or a relative, or a kindred spirit. In fact, those who watch Oprah on TV feel as if she's sitting next to them on the sofa.
Oprah, on air, does not reflect some sort of artificial TV community, but a genuine community reflected through the medium. A media organ is supposed to do just that--give us transparent access to reality. Usually reality isn't glossy or "glam" enough for the media, but Oprah shows that these qualities aren't necessary. She's earth-bound, and fundamentally sound, a role model like few others in America.
For many Americans, Oprah is a kind of emotional filter, and this imposes on her an enormous duty to society. To her credit, she recognizes this. She is deeply savvy about her importance to the culture, has her own sense of noblesse oblige, and doesn't shrink from her iconic responsibilities. Her comportment at the prayer meeting on Sunday, and her dignified demeanor, showed that she knew that this was the time to respect the religious, to lift a wounded country in prayer. She spoke in spiritual terms, discarding the familiarities that are her usual way, and she introduced everyone's prayers--fittingly--with her head slightly bowed.
I had intended this to be a piece about Oprah and the prayer meeting, but I can't resist a last observation. Over the years, she has been an enormous proponent of personal responsibility. Her message--unvarying, refreshing, salutary--is that nobody is going to help you but yourself. Her creed is this: Improve yourself.
And she embodies her own message--at once gritty, wholesome, and prodigious. Her message, and her presence, helped to unite America in prayer.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Tuesdays.
Copyright © 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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