I am speechless and there are no words to capture the essence of our experience at the Presidential Inauguration. Not only could I not believe I was really witnessing such an illustrious celebrated occasion, but that I was truly there in the flesh. Great God Almighty!! The consensus expressed in all the news programs about the feelings, reactions of everyone in attendance and the aura of the event was 100% accurate in the many emotions felt by my family and I. I thank God for the opportunity, experience, and for simply allowing it to be so. Thank you God.
My husband and I were blessed to have the companionship of our son Rev. Kevin and his wife LaTonya on our trip. We had a great time of bonding and fellowship. I am certain this will be one of our greatest family memories.
Surely, there were many great moments. One of the highlights for me was having the opportunity and privilege of meeting my first born blog son, Pastor Lance Mann. As soon as he arrived at our meeting place in Newark, I realized how TRULY excited I was. My husband and Pastor Kevin greeted him first with a declaration, that if they hadn't brought me over to meet him, they wouldn't have been able to return back to Texas in peace. Lance was then introduced to my daughter in law LaTonya. He turned to look at me. I asked him if he knew who "I" was. With a great big smile on both our faces, he reached out his arms to embrace and annouced me as Momma V! This happened two days after the inauguration, before seeing and touring any of the other sites and cities. If nothing else had happened after meeting my Lance, I would have returned home very happy and satisfied. He did not disappoint me, he met my every expectation of him. He felt just like family, a fine young man. We had a great time of fun and fellowship. He showed us a few sites, took us to Jersey city to see the New York skyline and Lady Liberty. He also took us to a fantastic place to have lunch called Je's. It was the best meal we had the entire time we were on our trip including our meal of the famous Philadelphia cheese steak. Thank you Lance for everything. I love you.
This is a picture I took at a funeral of one of our beloved Deacons standing in front of our church a few days ago. I just wanted to show off "Momma's Babies" on my blog. Has nothing to do with my trip. They are (L to R) Mr. Keith Lloyd (33), Rev. Kevin Lanier (37), Rev. Kraig Lowell Pullam (30). They are so beautiful.
Dad, Mom and the Boys!
On to the Inauguration trip photos ...
I hope you enjoyed viewing just a few of MANY pictures we took. Wish you all could have been there with us. I hope some day I will have the opportunity to meet the rest of my blog family.
P.S. I was also excited to see Will Smith's (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) neighborhood and the basketball court that he played on in West Philadelphia. I saw the Rocky Balboa statue and Patti LaBell's childhood home also.
I said, I was ALMOST speechless!!!! (lol)
My grandson,
Kai Livingston Pullam age 5
son of Kraig and D'Ani (Dee) Pullam.
Blessings to each of you
9 comments:
Wonderful post... I can agree with everything you said about the trip. It is something I will NEVER forget. I am grateful to have been able to spend that time at such a historic moment in such an historic place with my parents. Then, to meet my Pastor Mann was a true blessing. He is no longer simply a blog-brother. He is a brother indeed. I am also thankful for him taking out the time to show such kindness.
Thanks for recapping the trip in this way. It gives a glimpse of the many great things we did there.
Wait a minute... It just hit me that you did NOT put a picture of your favorite building. This could not be an oversight. So, will there be a post dedicated to it alone? lol
Love You,
Kevin
Wow Mom...what a trip...what a trip..the excitement of the moment still lingers in the words of this post and the photos posted here. Man I wish I were there for such a historic moment and the fellowship. I am sure you will treasure those memories for quite a while.
I am sure the time you all spent with Lance was awesome. Did you guys get to worship with him and his church family? Lance is somebodies preacher!
Glad you all made it back safely and glad to have you back posting again.
Tony R.
Wow! What a great post. In your words you accurately captured the essence of the entire experience. It was totally and completely "priceless." You are blessed to have a God given knack for detail and description.
I too was totally blown away by the events and the fact that I was actually there to experience it all. Totally "awesome". And to have the added blessing of wonderful fellowship with our son and his wife as well as our adopted son Lance, again "priceless". God is so amazing!
Thank you my sweetheart for sharing this great blog post and for sharing some of the precious photo memories.
Looking forward to the "next chapter" because I know that you are not through talking and writing about the trip and Pastor Lance yet ... L O L.
Love,
Pastor W.L.P.
Mother,
Words cannot express the honor and pure delight of spending some time with my new family. I am looking forward to rejoining with each of you in fellowship again real soon. I am just sorry that Kraig could not come, but alas that will happen very soon.
Please know that each of you are special to me and will always remain in my thoughts and prayers. You made me feel like a son, and I haven't felt that since my Mom made her transition 3 years ago. Love you much!
Lance
Mother Vietta,
Sounds like you had a marvelous time.
What a blessing to meet one of your blogging sons, maybe someday you will visit South Bend, IN or I will be in Corpus Christi, TX.
Welcome Back
Son
So glad you enjoy history in the making. I would have loved to have been there to share that experience with my grandson when we gets older. It's nothing being there in person but the TV worked fine for me. Bless you for letting us take the journey with you in you post. Grear pictures.
I stumbled upon your blog today and was so blessed with all of your posts. You seem like a wonderful woman, fighting the good fight and extolling many wonderful values.
I was equally pleased when I got to this post about the wonderful and historic event that was the inauguration. That was until I saw the picture of the woman holding a sign that said "Good Riddance George". What a wet blanket that threw upon an otherwise celebratory event. I certainly haven't agreed with everything that every president in my lifetime has done or said, but my family has always prayed for our president and will always do so.
There's no denying that George Bush stands for most, if not all, of the values that you seem to promote here on this site. However, you found it needful to celebrate with a photo that is disparaging to a good man. You may not agree with some or all of his policies, but is this in keeping with your core values?
Did you teach your sons that it was okay to boo the visiting basketball team or did you encourage them to cheer for the home team? Bill Clinton was as morally bankrupt a man than has ever occupied the White House, but my family and I prayed for him regularly. I do not agree with many of President Obama's big government policies (or G.W.'s big gov policies either), but we continue to pray for him.
Do you really want to be seen, in an otherwise extremely positive blog, as someone who is petty? Do you want folks to think that political differences would cause you to cast dispersions upon a brother and a man that by all accounts has led an exemplary life for the cause of Christ? I think not.
Please keep writing, but understand that you're not always preaching to the choir.
Yours in Christ,
Jack
Brother Jackwarr,
My first thought was not to address your comment. My reason for changing my mind and doing so, is not for your benefit. It is for the benefit of my blog family and friends who wants me to get you told.
You are certainly preceiving a whole lot from one photo about me. What I do and don't do, what I support or don't support, that I was among those who booed the outgoing President, and what I have taught my children. Man! you are a genius and telepathic!!
That photo is merely a visible historical documentation of many of the sentiments of those in attendance. Look up the word in the dictionary, it simply means farewell, relieve of, deliverance. Even I (who WAS there)can't begin to know what these women meant by that sign. Unlike you, I am NOT making any assumptions. Didn't know, didn't care, and still don't. Like a photographer, who has no preferences one way or another while on the job, I was merely capturing the day.
My husband, Pastor Pullam pray EVERY Sunday during our altar call for all government officials, city, state and national, whomever they may be.
But, even if all what you have said about me WAS true. It changes nothing else that is also REALLY true about me which you cannot know by merely visiting my blog.
Have a good one.
Dear Sister Vietta P:
I claim to be neither a genius or telepathic, however, I do believe that words and pictures do convey meaning. If you read carefully again, you'll notice that I said nothing about your booing the president (the only reference to booing was an example). Nothing in my post required the least bit of telepathy.
My greater point appears to go missing with you. As I said before, you seem to be "fighting the good fight and extolling many wonderful values." Then why would you give anyone reason to think that you might be disparaging a brother?
The casual reader would notice that this woman holding the sign shows up in the background of one picture and then repeated as the primary subject of the next picture. Repeating for emphasis is a commonly used rhetorical device. For example, the apostle Paul uses it in Romans chapter three to emphasize "glory and honor" (verses seven and ten). I don't believe one needs to be telepathic to see that "mere documentation" was really meant as an editorial...or at least it could be perceived that way by the casual reader. Is that not a reasonable assumption?
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt here and assuming that this is not the body of your work, that you indeed do write words that are edifying. You seem to have taken this personally and resorted to a shaky defense in replying with a loosely used definition of the phrase "good riddance" when you really know better.
Since you chose to go the definitional route, let be go you one better -- no, how about two. Shakespeare was the first to be cited using this phrase "good riddance". In his play Trolius and Cressida, where there's this exchange:
THERSITES I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.
PATROCLUS: A good riddance.
Wow, definitely not a simple "farewell".
And then there's the more common useage from Charles Dickens:
"A good riddance of bad rubbish!"
So you see, although I am no genius and am definitely not telpepathic, I think that my education and years of life experience would lead me to have a pretty good understanding of just what the old lady holding the sign meant.
And I'm reasonably sure from the body of your work that you really meant no harm to a brother. So, again, why would you want it to be perceived in that way?
Please believe me when I say to keep up the good job with your blog. We may have a disagreement about this one topic, but I really do believe that what you're doing is a needful work in our times.
May God richly bless you,
Jack
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