Psalm 46:10
10 “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
There are many times in life, when all I can do is be still and stand in the spotlight of God’s awesomeness. He puts me in awe with so many of the things that He chooses to do. There are times when I am literally paralized with humility at His power and authority. Tuesday, May 9, 2017, through the work of another human being, God chose to bless me in ways that I cannot begin to imagine. What am I talking about? Well that day marked a day I had been waiting on for a while. It was the release date for a book that had been anticipated for quite some time in serious political and historical circles. The book is called “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama” by David J. Garrow. One of the reasons that it had been so anticipated is because Garrow has an impeccable reputation as a scholar, known to be totally-obsessed with seeking out information, and provides meticulous documentation, in the form of footnotes and bibliographies for any information that he uses. I have been personally looking forward to this book because Mr. Garrow called me in March of 2014 (I didn’t realize his interview with me took place the day before my birthday!), to interview me about my 1989 interactions with President Obama. I had wondered if anything that I said would wind up within the book. On the book’s release date, I went by my nearest Barnes and Noble to take a look at it. I can’t really call this a “book!” It would probably be more appropriate to call it an encyclopedia, since the text of it is—get this!—1078 pages long! There are another 300 or so pages of notes!I have not, with the possible exception of an unabridged dictionary, personally seen a book this big. Anyway, I skimmed the book, looking through it for general information, and to see if I appeared in it. Guess what? Mr. Garrow devotes nearly 3 paragraphs imparting information from his telephone interview with me. One special, gold nugget of information, that I thought that he could not resist from what I told him, is present in all of its glory. He also listed my name and the title of my book in a footnote for the entry. I had pre-ordered the book on Amazon, so I did not buy a copy of it on its release date, but I began to immediately make my way through it when it arrived on my doorstep the next day. I think it is fair to say that there will never be another biography of President Obama that is as thorough and well-researched as this one. In fairness to Mr. Garrow, he told me that the book would probably conclude with President Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention speech in Boston, so the book does not cover President Obama’s entire life up to this point, or even his Presidency. I have no idea what I will think of the overall book once I read it, but I do want to take time out to congratulate Mr. David J. Garrow on a majestic piece of scholarship. It does not take a rocket scientist to imagine the mind-blowing time and work he must have put into this effort over the course of his 8 years of research.