{"id":220,"date":"2008-08-29T09:01:56","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T09:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/promised-land.html"},"modified":"2008-08-29T09:01:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T09:01:56","slug":"promised-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/promised-land.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama, Mile High Stadium and Hilliard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\"><\/p>\n<h1><span>Is this the promised land or are we still wandering in the desert?<\/span><br \/><\/h1>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\">\t<\/span>Those were the questions that went through my mind as I attended Barack Obama&#039;s acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium. &#160;I wasn&#039;t planning on being there but a last minute phone call from a new found friend landed me with a parking pass and a seat.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\">\t<\/span>The crowd was energized, Obama&#039;s was oration was soaring, the fireworks served as a fitting punctuation. &#160;But I spent most of my time looking at the people next to me. &#160;On my right was a balding, thirty-something white man who stood the whole time and couldn&#039;t speak because of his tears. &#160;Two seats to my left was a middle aged native-American man who proudly waved his American flag non-stop. &#160;And then there was Hilliard a sixty something african-american.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\">\t<\/span>When I arrived and sat down next to him it was obvious that he had been there a while as half eaten bags of popcorn and snacks were spread out in the seats around him. &#160;We exchanged greetings and smiled as we listened to Stevie Wonder sing, &quot;Signed, sealed, delivered&#8230;I&#039;m yours!&quot;<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\">\t<\/span>He then leaned over and said, &quot;I never thought I&#039;d see this day.&quot; &#160;He then shared about growing up in Texas and attending segregated schools. &#160;Raised by a mother who was illiterate. &#160;He then said that it was amazing enough that he had retired as a successful civil engineer, sent two sons to college and now owns a gallery for western art. &#160;After Obama&#039;s speech he looked at me and said, &quot;Thank you for sharing this moment with me. &#160;I wish my sons were here with me but you have been a great substitute!&quot; &#160;As a man who has always wanted a daddy, tears welled up.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-tab-span\">\t<\/span>Forty-five years ago King spoke about his dream. &#160;Forty years ago, the night before he was assassinated, he said that he had been to the mountain top and seen the promised land. &#160;Which makes me wonder&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>Is what we are witnessing the promised land King saw?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is this the promised land or are we still wandering in the desert? Those were the questions that went through my mind as I attended Barack Obama&#039;s acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium. &#160;I wasn&#039;t planning on being there but a last minute phone call from a new found friend landed me with a parking&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama, Mile High Stadium and Hilliard - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/promised-land.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama, Mile High Stadium and Hilliard - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is this the promised land or are we still wandering in the desert? Those were the questions that went through my mind as I attended Barack Obama&#039;s acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium. &#160;I wasn&#039;t planning on being there but a last minute phone call from a new found friend landed me with a parking&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/promised-land.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-29T09:01:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama, Mile High Stadium and Hilliard - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/promised-land.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama, Mile High Stadium and Hilliard - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Is this the promised land or are we still wandering in the desert? 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}