Deconstruction of Obama's Wright statement: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/deconstructing_obamas_lawyerly.html No wonder this country is run by lawyers
An old article in Aug 2007 reported Obama head about Wright's hateful statements at the church. I think it is a matter of time news stories come out to confirm that he heard about these way earlier and hence exposes his lies. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/8/8/194812.shtml?s=lh Obama's Church: Cauldron of Division Jim Davis Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007 Presidential candidate Barack Obama preaches on the campaign trail that America needs a new consensus based on faith and bipartisanship, yet he continues to attend a controversial Chicago church whose pastor routinely refers to "white arrogance" and "the United States of White America." In fact, Obama was in attendance at the church when these statements were made on July 22. Obama has spoken and written of his special relationship with that pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. The connection between the two goes back to Obama's days as a young community organizer in Chicago's South Side when he first met the charismatic Wright. Obama credited Wright with converting him, then a religious skeptic, to Christianity. [Editor's Note: Can Oprah Winfrey make Barack Obama president? Click Here.] "It was ... at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had," Obama described his spiritual pilgrimage to a group of church ministers this past June. Since the 1980s, Obama has not only remained a regular attendee at Wright's services in his inner city mega church, Trinity United Church of Christ, along with its other 8,500 members, he's been a close disciple and personal friend of Wright. Wright conducted Obama's marriage to his wife Michelle, baptized his two daughters, and blessed Obama's Chicago home. Obama's best-selling book, "The Audacity of Hope," takes its title from one of Wright's sermons. Because of this close relationship, questions have been raised as to the influence the divisive pastor will have on the consensus-building potential president. Obama and Wright appear, at first blush, an unlikely pair. Wright is Chicago's version of the Rev. Al Sharpton. It was no surprise that Sharpton recently announced that with Wright's backing, he was setting up a chapter of his New York-based National Action Network in Chicagoland. The chapter will be headed by Wright's daughter, Jeri Wright. Minister of Controversy Obama was not the only national African-American figure to cozy up to Wright. TV host Oprah Winfrey once described herself as a congregant, but in recent years has disassociated herself from the controversial minister. A visit to Wright's Trinity United is anything but Oprah-style friendly. As I approached the entrance of the church before a recent Sunday service, a large young man in an expensive suit stepped out to block the doorway. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I came to hear Dr. Wright," I replied. After an uncomfortable pause, the gentleman stepped aside. On this particular July Sabbath morning, only a handful of white men — aside from a few members of Obama's Secret Service detail — were present among a congregation of approximately 2,500 people. The floral arrangements were extravagant. Wright, his associate pastors, choir members, and many of the gentlemen in the congregation were attired in traditional African dashiki robes. African drums accompanied the organist. Trinity United bears the motto "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian." Wright says its doctrine reflects black liberation theology, which views the Bible in part as a record of the struggles of "people of color" against oppression. A skilled and fiery orator, Wright's interpretation of the Scriptures has been described as "Afrocentric." When referring to the Romans, for example, he refers to "European oppression" — not addressing the fact that the Egyptians, who were also a slave society, were people of Africa. The Trinity United Web site tells of a "commitment to the black community, commitment to the black family, adherence to the black work ethic, pledge to make all the fruits of developing acquired skills available to the black community." "Some white people hear it as racism in reverse," Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ, tells The New York Times. Blacks tend to hear a different message, Hopkins says: "Yes, we are somebody; we're also made in God's image." Controversy Abounds Several prior remarks by Obama's pastor have caught the media's attention: # Wright on 9/11: "White America got their wake-up call after 9/11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns." On the Sunday after the attacks, Dr. Wright blamed America. # Wright on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway: "Black women are being raped daily in Africa. One white girl from Alabama gets drunk at a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country and that stays in the news for months." # Wright on Israel: "The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism." # Wright on America: He has used the term "middleclassness" in a derogatory manner; frequently mentions "white arrogance" and the "oppression" of African-Americans today; and has referred to "this racist United States of America." Bush's Bulls--t Wright's strong sentiments were echoed in the Sunday morning service attended by NewsMax. Wright laced into America's establishment, blaming the "white arrogance" of America's Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially the oppression suffered by blacks. To underscore the point he refers to the country as the "United States of White America." Many in the congregation, including Obama, nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made. The sermon also addressed the Iraq war, a frequent area of Wright's fulminations. "Young African-American men," Wright thundered, were "dying for nothing." The "illegal war," he shouted, was "based on Bush's lies" and is being "fought for oil money." In a sermon filled with profanity, Wright also blamed the war on "Bush administration bulls--t." Those are the types of statements that have led to MSNBC's Tucker Carlson describing Wright as "a full-blown hater." Wright first came to national attention in 1984, when he visited Castro's Cuba and Col. Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. Wright's Libyan visit came three years after a pair of Libyan fighter jets fired on American aircraft over international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, and four years before the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland — which resulted in the deaths of 259 passengers and crew. The U.S. implicated Gaddafi and his intelligence services in the bombing. In recent years, Wright has focused his diatribe on America's war on terror and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. For a February 2003 service, Wright placed a "War on Iraq IQ Test" on the Pastor's Page of the church Web site. The test consisted of a series of questions and answers that clearly portrayed America as the aggressor, and the war as unjustified and illegal. Marginally relevant issues regarding Israel received attention. The test also portrayed the Iraqi people as victims of trade sanctions, but Saddam Hussein's propensity for using "oil for food" proceeds to build palaces rather than buy medicine was never mentioned. At the end of the test, the pastor wrote, "Members of Trinity are asked to think about these things and be prayerful as we sift through the ‘hype' being poured on by the George Bush-controlled media." Obama's campaign staff did not respond to a NewsMax request for the senator's response to Wright's statements. In April, however, Obama spoke to The New York Times about Wright, and appeared to be trying to distance himself from his spiritual mentor. He said, "We don't agree on everything. I've never had a thorough conversation with him about all aspects of politics." More specifically, Obama told the Times, "The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification," adding "It sounds like [Wright] was trying to be provocative." Obama attributed Wright's controversial views to Wright being "a child of the '60s" who Obama said "expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism, and the struggles the African-American community has gone through." "It is hard to imagine, though, how Mr. Obama can truly distance himself from Mr. Wright," writes Jodi Kantor of The New York Times. On the day Sen. Obama announced his presidential quest in February of this year, Wright was set to give the invocation at the Springfield, Ill. rally. At the last moment, Obama's campaign yanked the invite to Wright. Wright's camp was apparently upset by the slight, and Obama's campaign quickly issued a statement "Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church." Since that spat, there is little evidence, indeed, that Sen. Obama has sought to distance himself from the angry Church leader. In June, when Obama appeared before a conference of ministers from his religious denomination, Wright appeared in a videotaped introduction. One of Obama's campaign themes has been his claim that conservative evangelicals have "hijacked" Christianity, ignoring issues like poverty, AIDS, and racism. This past June, in an effort to build a new consensus between his new politics and faith, Obama's campaign launched a new Web page, www.faith.barackobama.com. On the day the page appeared on his campaign site, it offered testimonials from Wright and two other ministers supporting Obama. The inclusion of Wright drew a sharp rebuke from the Catholic League. Noting that Obama had rescinded Wright's invitation to speak at his announcement ceremony, Catholic League President Bill Donohue declared that Obama "knew that his spiritual adviser was so divisive that he would cloud the ceremonies." He noted that Wright "has a record of giving racially inflammatory sermons and has even said that Zionism has an element of ‘white racism.' He also blamed the attacks of 9/11 on American foreign policy." Donohue acknowledged that Obama may have different views than Wright and the other ministers on his Web site, but "he is responsible for giving them the opportunity to prominently display their testimonials on his religious outreach Web site." Political pundits have suggested that Obama's problems with Wright are not ones based on faith, but pure politics. The upstart presidential candidate needs to pull most of the black vote to have any chance of snagging the Democratic nomination. Obama's ties to Wright and the activist African American church helps in that effort. But the same experts same those same ties may come to haunt him if he were to win the nomination and face a Republican in the general election. The worry is not lost on Wright. "If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me," Wright told The New York Times with a shrug. "I said it to Barack personally, and he said 'yeah, that might have to happen.'"
Can't we just begin to make fun of this already? <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HE14Xn3RjFQ&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HE14Xn3RjFQ&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
No, I was commenting on your contradiction. According to you, we don’t know the real Obama. That can only be known “privately.” But we do know Jeremiah Wright (through Youtube videos and articles), extensively enough that it helps us scrape away the public Obama veneer. But maybe that isn’t a contradiction. Maybe you have also had a relationship with Wright, allowing you to know him, “truly.” The problem with your post was actually the “two sides.” People are a little more complex than that, I think. People have multiple “sides,” and the sides only increase with age. Wright is 66 years old. He was an adult before the Civil Rights Act was passed. Maybe he has seen a lot of racism in his life that helped build the resentment. Apparently his resentment of the country didn’t stop him from joining the Marines and Navy. More gray… http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-070121-relig_wright,1,271630.story?page=2 Obama didn’t get to know Wright through Youtube videos. He got to know him on a bit more of a personal level. Not just through his words (whether "incendiary" or inspiring), but through his actions, as well. Helping the poor, helping people with AIDS, etc. Maybe Wright did have private moments with Obama where he lashed out at others, with resentment. Maybe Obama put it into context, saw it as a product of Wright’s past, and didn’t let it outweigh the other aspects of his life and work. It was just one of Wright’s many sides, an unfortunate one, but not entirely who he was, as a person. Everyone has negative sides, but most also have redeeming qualities. If you continue to analyze Wright only by his public statements (specific statements), and nothing else, then shouldn’t you do the same with Obama? Has Obama ever made similar statements, revealing bitterness or resentment? Better yet, why don’t you judge Obama on his words, actions, and… just life, in general? Examine everything about him. If you delve into his personal relationships, examine that person’s words, actions, and life, as well. There’s no reason for this flaky (disingenuous) nonsense, where we only stay at the surface of this stuff, asking questions without really searching for answers. Here's something... http://mp3.christianity.com/mp3/mp3...2_JeremiahWright__TheAudacitytoHope82A.32.mp3
I don't think anyone is accusing Obama anti-American and/or racist yet because there is not strong evidence to support this. However, throughout this episode, he showed poor judgment, most notably putting Wright on his campaign even after he learned about his hate speech. Also, Obama's statements in HuffPost and TV interviews are legalese that is reminiscent of Bill Clinton. As noted in another article I cited, I don't think Obama is anti-American or racist. He was using Wright to secure the Black votes. That's why even today he can't repudiate the man. This shows that he is a very calculating politician just like others.
while I agree it was poor judgement to link himself to this guy, I'm not ready to accuse him of doing it to secure the black vote, even in chicago. he could have joined any of hundreds of black churches I'm sure.
No, you quit using the imperative voice when you have reading comprehension problems. I'm excusing nothing, because I think there's nothing to excuse. I think this is a steaming pile of nothing. Guilt by association has never had traction with me. But really, congrats to you, and your hatred of Obama. If this Wright business turns into the 2008 edition of swift boating, enjoy your next round of excellent US leadership.
Didn't he join the church long before he ever entered politics? And I don't think his state Senate district was majority black. I think he won by attracting a large portion of the white vote. I could be wrong on that, but I thought I read that a while back.
Obama’s Brother in China By ROGER COHEN BRUSSELS So there I was, a couple of weeks back, sitting under a mango tree in western Kenya, when Senator Barack Obama’s half-sister Auma says to me: “My daughter’s father is British. My mom’s brother is married to a Russian. I have a brother in China engaged to a Chinese woman.” My understanding is that this half brother living in China is Mark. He’s the son of Obama’s father and an American woman named Ruth, whom Obama Sr. met while at Harvard in the 1960s and brought back to Kenya. That was after his marriage with Obama’s mother in Hawaii ended. Another son from the union with Ruth, called David, was killed in a motorcycle accident. In all, Obama Sr. fathered eight children by four women. I’ve been thinking about this because not enough has been written about Obama’s family. As Auma suggested, it’s unusual in the extent of its continent-crossing, religion-melding, color-fusing richness. But the Benetton-ad family is less unusual than it may seem. This is the age of globalized, far-flung families. Remittances make the world go round. More needs to be written because if Obama gets the Democratic nomination, you know the Republican attack machine, through innuendo and otherwise, will go after his identity, just as it went after Senator John Kerry’s in 2004. The difference is that Obama is much more certain and coherent about who he is than Kerry was. He has built his identity in a shifting world; that resonates with a lot of Americans. His radical Chicago pastor contributed to that journey. Now Obama has grown beyond him. I have no problem with that. But you can already see the headlines: Obama has brother in China! You can hear the whisperings about a polygamous father. That not enough has been written about his family is strange in that Obama himself devoted a remarkable book, “Dreams From My Father,” to his quest to fill the void left by an absent Dad. As Auma said to me: “He was trying to figure out who he was. He needed to be whole to be able to do what he’s doing now. He went about it the right way. A big chunk of his life was missing. It’s very healthy that he now knows he has these roots here.” Those roots were discovered during Obama’s first visit to Kenya two decades ago. During that trip, as recounted in his memoir, he encountered Ruth in Nairobi. She is described as “a white woman with a long jaw and graying hair.” But who is Ruth, a woman who divorced Obama’s father, remarried, and gave the family name of her second husband to her two sons by Obama Sr.? In the book she says, with less than exquisite tact, to Barack Obama: “But your mother remarried. I wonder why she had you keep your name?” As for Ruth’s son, and Obama’s half brother, Mark, the one in China, he’s described as studying physics at Stanford in the 1980s. “The things Mark studies are so complicated only a handful of people really understand it at all,” Ruth enthuses. But Mark, “a black man of my height and complexion,” tells Obama his work’s a breeze. He expresses limited interest in their shared father who died in 1982 at 46: “Life’s hard enough without all the excess baggage,” he muses. If nominated, Obama’s family baggage will get pored over. Four years ago, Bush’s people cast Kerry as un-American for speaking French. A Republican camp campaigning at the sorry nadir of Bush’s handiwork will try to portray the war hero John McCain as more American and patriotic than his opponent. But things are different. Less fearful, Americans are less willing to be manipulated. They’ve backed Obama this far in part because they’re sick of the narrow American exceptionalism of Bush’s divisive rule. Never before have U.S. fortunes been so tied to the world’s. Americans see that. When your mortgage is packaged into some ingenious security that’s sold to a German bank before the scheme unravels and you lose your house, the globe looks smaller. With some 30 percent of the revenue of U.S. corporations coming from overseas, and the Chinese buying American debt, and more than seven million people naturalized in the past decade, it’s harder to separate America’s fate from that of others. Isolationism is not merely wrong, it’s impossible. If elected, Obama would be the first genuinely 21st-century leader. The China-Indonesia-Kenya-Britain-Hawaii web mirrors a world in flux. In Kenya, his uncle Sayid, a Muslim, told me: “My Islam is a hybrid, a mix of elements, including my Christian schooling and even some African ways. Many values have dissolved in me.” Obama’s bridge-building instincts come from somewhere. They are rooted and proven. For an expectant and often alienated world, they are of central significance. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/29cohen.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
He didn't need Wright back then because he simply pull his contenders off the ballot by legal technicality. Who needs voters when you have no challengers? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070403obama-ballot,1,57567.story Excerpts: But when Palmer got clobbered in that November 1995 special congressional race, her supporters asked Obama to fold his campaign so she could easily retain her state Senate seat. Obama not only refused to step aside, he filed challenges that nullified Palmer's hastily gathered nominating petitions, forcing her to withdraw. "I liked Alice Palmer a lot. I thought she was a good public servant," Obama said. "It was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently."
crying racism is weak, I think I heard someone say that once. I guess protecting all those white people oppressed by the black preacher establishment is a priority though. its worth it
It is worth it to my ears. I would love to hit Mr. Wright with a beer can to the face during one of his "sermons".
Big talk. I doubt you would have the courage to attend a black church, much less hit the pastor with a beer can in front of the congregation.
The text of Rev. Wright's "Audacity to Hope" sermon. Hateful and anti-American, indeed. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/for-the-record.html Several years ago while I was in Richmond, the Lord allowed me to be in that city during the week of the annual convocation at Virginia Union University School of Theology. There I heard the preaching and teaching of Reverend Frederick G. Sampson of Detroit, Michigan. In one of his lectures, Dr. Sampson spoke of a painting I remembered studying in humanities courses back in the late '50s. In Dr. Sampson's powerful description of the picture, he spoke of it being a study in contradictions, because the title and the details on the canvas seem to be in direct opposition. The painting's title is "Hope." It shows a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music? As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction. Famine ravages millions of inhabitants in one hemisphere, while feasting and gluttony are enjoyed by inhabitants of another hemisphere. This world is a ticking time bomb, with apartheid in one hemisphere and apathy in the other. Scientists tell us there are enough nuclear warheads to wipe out all forms of life except cockroaches. That is the world on which the woman sits in Watt's painting. Our world cares more about bombs for the enemy than about bread for the hungry. This world is still more concerned about the color of skin than it is about the content of character—a world more finicky about what's on the outside of your head than about the quality of your education or what's inside your head. That is the world on which this woman sits. You and I think of being on top of the world as being in heaven. When you look at the woman in Watt's painting, you discover this woman is in hell. She is wearing rags. Her Georgefredericwattshope tattered clothes look as if the woman herself has come through Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Her head is bandaged, and blood seeps through the bandages. Scars and cuts are visible on her face, her arms, and her legs. I. Illusion of Power vs. Reality of Pain A closer look reveals all the harp strings but one are broken or ripped out. Even the instrument has been damaged by what she has been through, and she is the classic example of quiet despair. Yet the artist dares to entitle the painting Hope. The illusion of power—sitting on top of the world—gives way to the reality of pain. And isn't it that way with many of us? We give the illusion of being in an enviable position on top of the world. Look closer, and our lives reveal the reality of pain too deep for the tongue to tell. For the woman in the painting, what looks like being in heaven is actually an existence in a quiet hell. I've been a pastor for seventeen years. I've seen too many of these cases not to know what I'm talking about. I've seen married couples where the husband has a girlfriend in addition to his wife. It's something nobody talks about. The wife smiles and pretends not to hear the whispers and the gossip. She has the legal papers but knows he would rather try to buy Fort Knox than divorce her. That's a living hell. I've seen married couples where the wife had discovered that somebody else cares for her as a person and not just as cook, maid jitney service, and call girl all wrapped into one. But there's the scandal: What would folks say? What about the children? That's a living hell. I've seen divorcees whose dreams have been blown to bits, families broken up beyond repair, and lives somehow slipping through their fingers. They've lost control. That's a living hell. I've seen college students who give the illusion of being on top of the world—designer clothes, all the sex that they want, all the cocaine or mar1juana or drugs, all the trappings of having it all together on the outside—but empty and shallow and hurting and lonely and afraid on the inside. Many times what looks good on the outside—the illusion of being in power, of sitting on top of the world—with a closer look is actually existence in a quiet hell. That is exactly where Hannah is in 1 Samuel 1 :1-18. Hannah is top dog in this three-way relationship between herself, Elkanah, and Peninnah. Her husband loves Hannah more than he loves his other wife and their children. Elkanah tells Hannah he loves her. A lot of husbands don't do that. He shows Hannah that he loves her, and many husbands never get around to doing that. In fact, it is his attention and devotion to Hannah that causes Peninnah to be so angry and to stay on Hannah's case constantly. Jealous! Jealousy will get hold of you, and you can't let it go because it won't let you go. Peninnah stayed on Hannah, like we say, "as white on rice." She constantly picked at Hannah, making her cry, taking her appetite away. At first glance Hannah's position seems enviable. She had all the rights and none of the responsibilities—no diapers to change, no beds to sit beside at night, no noses to wipe, nothing else to wipe either, no babies draining you of your milk and demanding feeding. Hannah was top dog. No baby portions to fix at meal times. Her man loved her; everybody knew he loved her. He loved her more than anything or anybody. That's why Peninnah hated her so much. Now, except for the second-wife bit, which was legal back then, Hannah was sitting on top of the world, until you look closer. When you look closer, what looked like being in heaven was actually existing in a quiet hell. Hannah had the pain of a bitter woman to contend with, for verse 7 says that nonstop, Peninnah stayed with her. Hannah suffered the pain of living with a bitter woman. And she suffered another pain—the pain of a barren womb. You will remember the story of the widow in 2 Kings 4 who had no child. The story of a woman with no children was a story of deep pathos and despair in biblical days. Do you remember the story of Sarah and what she did in Genesis 16 because of her barren womb—before the three heavenly visitors stopped by their tent? Do you remember the story of Elizabeth and her husband in Luke I? Back in Bible days, the story of a woman with a barren womb was a story of deep pathos. And Hannah was afflicted with the pain of a bitter woman on the one hand and the pain of a barren womb on the other. Hannah's world was flawed, flaky. Her garments of respectability were tattered and torn, and her heart was bruised and bleeding from the constant attacks of a jealous woman. The scars and scratches on her psyche are almost visible as you look at this passage, where she cries, refusing to eat anything. Just like the woman in Watt's painting, what looks like being in heaven is actually existence in a quiet hell. Now I want to share briefly with you about Hannah—the lady and the Lord. While I do so, I want you to be thinking about where you live and your own particular pain predicament. Think about it for a moment. Dr. Sampson said he wanted to quarrel with the artist for having the gall to name that painting Hope when all he could see in the picture was hell—a quiet desperation. But then Dr. Sampson said he noticed that he had been looking only at the horizontal dimensions and relationships and how this woman was hooked up with that world on which she sat. He had failed to take into account her vertical relationships. He had not looked above her head. And when he looked over her head, he found some small notes of music moving joyfully and playfully toward heaven. II. The Audacity to Hope Then, Dr. Sampson began to understand why the artist titled the painting "Hope." In spite of being in a world torn by war, in spite of being on a world destroyed by hate and decimated by distrust, in spite of being on a world where famine and greed are uneasy bed partners, in spite of being on a world where apartheid and apathy feed the fires of racism and hatred, in spite of being on a world where nuclear nightmare draws closer with each second, in spite of being on a ticking time bomb, with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God. The vertical dimension balanced out what was going on in the horizontal dimension. And that is what the audacity to hope will do for you. The apostle Paul said the same thing. "You have troubles? Glory in your trouble. We glory in tribulation." That's the horizontal dimension. We glory in tribulation because, he says, "Tribulation works patience. And patience works experience. And experience works hope. (That's the vertical dimension.) And hope makes us not ashamed." The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension. That is the real story here in the first chapter of 1 Samuel. Not the condition of Hannah's body, but the condition of Hannah's soul—her vertical dimension. She had the audacity to keep on hoping and praying when there was no visible sign on the horizontal level that what she was praying for, hoping for, and waiting for would ever be answered in the affirmative. What Hannah wanted most out of life had been denied to her. Think about that. Yet in spite of that, she kept on hoping. The gloating of Peninnah did not make her bitter. She kept on hoping. When the family made its pilgrimage to the sanctuary at Shiloh, she renewed her petition there, pouring out her heart to God. She may have been barren, but that's a horizontal dimension. She was fertile in her spirit, her vertical dimension. She prayed and she prayed and she prayed and she kept on praying year after year. With no answer, she kept on praying. She prayed so fervently in this passage that Eli thought she had to be drunk. There was no visible sign on the horizontal level to indicate to Hannah that her praying would ever be answered. Yet, she kept on praying. And Paul said something about that, too. No visible sign? He says, "Hope is what saves us, for we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he have hope for it? But if we hope for that which we see not (no visible sign), then do we with patience wait for it." That's almost an echo of what the prophet Isaiah said: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension. There may not be any visible sign of a change in your individual situation, whatever your private hell is. But that's just the horizontal level. Keep the vertical level intact, like Hannah. You may, like the African slaves, be able to sing, "Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere." Keep the vertical dimension intact like Hannah. Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that home of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours. Whatever it is you've been praying for, keep on praying, and you may find, like my grandmother sings, "There's a bright side somewhere; there is a bright side somewhere. Don't you rest until you find it, for there is a bright side somewhere." III. Persistence of Hope The real lesson Hannah gives us from this chapter—the most important word God would have us hear—is how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident. It's easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident—you don't know where that somewhere is that my grandmother sang about, or if there will ever be that brighter day—that is a true test of a Hannah-type faith. To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope—make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you've got left, even though you can't see what God is going to do—that's the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt's painting. There's a true-life illustration that demonstrates the principles portrayed so powerfully in this periscope. And I close with it. My mom and my dad used to sing a song that I've not been able to find in any of the published hymnals. It's an old song out of the black religious tradition called "Thank you, Jesus." It's a very simple song. Some of you have heard it. It's simply goes, "Thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Lord." To me they always sang that song at the strangest times—when the money got low, or when the food was running out. When I was getting in trouble, they would start singing that song. And I never understood it, because as a child it seemed to me they were thanking God that we didn't have any money, or thanking God that we had no food, or thanking God that I was making a fool out of myself as a kid. Conclusion: Hope is What Saves Us But I was only looking at the horizontal level. I did not understand nor could I see back then the vertical hookup that my mother and my father had. I did not know then that they were thanking him in advance for all they dared to hope he would do one day to their son, in their son, and through their son. That's why they prayed. That's why they hoped. That's why they kept on praying with no visible sign on the horizon. And I thank God I had praying parents, because now some thirty-five years later, when I look at what God has done in my life, I understand clearly why Hannah had the audacity to hope. Why my parents had the audacity to hope. And that's why I say to you, hope is what saves us. Keep on hoping; keep on praying. God does hear and answer prayer./i]
