Obama sits down with Rev. Billy Graham
President Barack Obama had his first face-to-face talks on Sunday with one of America’s top spiritual leaders, the Reverend Billy Graham.
Graham, 91, who is ailing with Parkinson’s disease, has prayed with U.S. presidents over the course of the past 50 years or so.
Obama visited his Montreat log cabin home at the end of a weekend trip to western North Carolina.
“Rev. Graham has obviously been an important spiritual leader for past presidents and for the American people for decades,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said.
He called Graham “a real treasure for our country and the president appreciates the opportunity to visit him at his home and speak with him.”
He said he assumed Obama and Graham would pray together.
The U.S. Army last week withdrew an invitation to Graham’s son Franklin Graham to speak at a Pentagon prayer service next month following an outcry over his references to Islam as a violent religion. The invitation had been extended by the private, Colorado-based National Day of Prayer Task Force.
Rhyming reverend gets last word at Obama inaugural
WASHINGTON – Rev. Joseph Lowery was back on stage with a president, but on Tuesday the civil-rights pioneer used his wry rhymes to welcome the U.S. leader, not skewer him as he did three years ago.
Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., delivered the benediction at Barack Obama’s inauguration as first black U.S. president.
Lowery prayed for healing from a era of “greed and corruption,” and asked, in verse, for divine help toward a new beginning of racial harmony:
“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right,” Lowery said to laughter from the vast audience.
In 2006, speaking before then-president George W. Bush and three former presidents at the funeral of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, Lowery delivered a stern rebuke to Bush’s conduct of the Iraq war and domestic policy.
“We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew, and we know, that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more, but no more for the poor,” he said then.
Critics charged that the remarks were out of place at a funeral. Lowery defended them as relevant to Mrs. King’s life.
My Country
For those who are angry about the Inaugural prayer Rev. Lowery prayed, please forgive him. He’s an old warrior, and it may be quite difficult for him to let go of the hurt from the past. One must understand the struggles of a people from so long ago. I would like to thank; whites, reds, yellows and browns, who have stood by us as African Americans to finally make it to some point in history were we can finally say maybe, just maybe we have almost arrived at the “mountain top”. It’s been a long hard struggle! I don’t want to say only if you’re “black” you understood what he prayed the HURT and the HUMOR. I do believe others who aren’t African American understood as well. I do believe he didn’t mean any harm.
If I may share some of my family’s history to help some understand why some of our elders speak the way they do. My father and mother were married for almost 60 years, raised 10 children in the ghetto and helped 7 of those children through college. My father fought in 3 wars: WWII, Korean, and the beginning of Vietnam. He was always trying to prove himself as an American. While on leave he would go home to visit his mother in Mississippi and some would spit on him in his uniform, shouting at him to take off that uniform you black (n word). Yet he jumped ships when being bombed, watched his buddies killed in war, hide in fox holes fighting the enemy, kicked by some white officers and called the (n word)when he thought he had found a quiet place to kneel and pray on ship(only 17, he said he was scared the first time they were attacked by the Japanese and all had to jump ship)…..and being left to walk alone on a dark rode after a car drives up and pick up all the soldiers, he reaches for the door to get in and the car drive off. He heard the driver say, “ I don’t drive no ( n word) “, so he continued walking alone. He told me that hurt, and that driver didn’t see me as an American! With tears at times he would tell us this is “OUR COUNTRY” treat others with respect and “IT DIDN’T MATTER THE COLOR.”
He never wanted us to deal with what he had gone through. He was always trying to prove himself as an American always! All my life because of my father it’s been God, family and county. My country, my America. When Rev. Lowery gave the prayer, when he said “Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest.”, I thought of my father, who would have loved to see this day. I shared my father’s history not to lay blame or point fingers.. But to say thank you America ( whites, reds, yellows, browns, and yes African Americans) for coming together this day and saying we are ONE COUNTRY, and we can stand together as ONE RACE OF PEOPLE.. As the Apostle John would say, “let us love one another little children.” My father taught all of his children and grandchildren to “LOVE ALL PEOPLE”.. He never past on the hate to us that others pushed at him for years!! He would only cry his pain to my mother the hurt he suffered… She finally let us know this intimate moment between the two of them after his death. In memory of my beloved father (I miss you daddy) he died Veteran’s Day 2005.
This is just plain wrong, on so many levels.