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Congregation sets controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright afloat
By Herm Welty,
Political correspondent
March 17, 2008,
Chicago--The
soothing rhythm of a Negro spiritual filled the crisp air at daybreak
Sunday as more than 600 well-heeled members of Trinity United Church of
Christ gathered on the icy shores of Lake Michigan to say farewell to a
spiritual icon.
Tears ran down the cheeks of church elders when they pushed with long
poles a thirty-ton block of ice into the wind-whipped white caps.
Set adrift on the icy stage, a somber Rev. Jeremiah Wright sat in his
favorite reclining chair as the church choir broke into “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot.”
The sky-blue La-Z-Boy was for years a centerpiece in the pastor’s own
living room.
“Everyone’s time comes and now it’s time to say goodbye to our senile old
uncle,” said Brenda Gilbert, a Chicago real estate agent, civil rights
activist and Sunday school teacher. “He was starting to get a bad case of
what we call, ‘The Eye.’”
Word spread fast late last week that the ceremony would take place Sunday.
March is a difficult time to hold the ceremony due to diminishing lake ice
but Wright’s presence had become increasingly controversial during an
important election year.
High-profile former church member Oprah Winfrey ordered the block of ice shipped
from Maine on Saturday.
Black leaders from as far away as Harlem and Atlanta traveled to Chicago
to witness the event.
“Pushing an elder to sea on an ice floe is a time-honored tradition among
indigenous peoples above the arctic circle,” said noted Harvard scholar
Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “It’s always been part of our heritage to take
these traditions and make them our own.”
A
hint of a smile could be seen on Wright’s face when waves initially pushed
the ice floe back to shore. But a port authority tugboat was summoned and
the ceremony continued.
Only a solitary voice could be heard above the tug’s diesel engine.
“Your time is coming, Jesse!”
The News Lampoon--Twisted News, Humor & Satire
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