Joshua DuBois was there when President Obama had the agonizing task of comforting the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
“It was a heartbreaking day,” said DuBois, who was then director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and who had taken it on his own the task of providing daily devotionals to the president.
“Just a few days earlier, these parents sent their little ones off to school one day and never saw them again,” said DuBois, author of the recently released “The President’s Devotional.”
“I saw President Obama tap into this faith to provide whatever comfort he could to those families at that horrible time. He hugged mothers and fathers, tossed little brothers and sisters in the air, and tried to bring some measure of comfort in that horrible day.”
As usual, DuBois, who left as director of the faith-based program earlier this year, was there with an encouraging message.
For years, DuBois, a graduate of Boston University and Princeton University, had provided daily meditations, writings and prayers for Obama, whom he had known as a senator and during his run for the White House. His book contains some of the his best readings and prayers he sent as daily emails to the president.
He will discuss and sign copies of his book at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Carter Presidential Library & Museum, 441 Freedom Parkway. The event is free and open to the public.
In the book’s forward, DuBois, who worked on Obama’s senatorial staff, said he sent an email to Obama and said he had a few devotionals and Scriptures that might provide encouragement as he made his run for the White House. Obama, he said, was open to the idea.
Years later, he said, after Obama became president and he later became director of the faith-based office program, the emails continued.
Obama has acknowledged they helped and encouraged him.
Time magazine once called him President Obama’s “pastor-in-chief.”
“I really wanted them to be an oasis away from the concerns of the day,” he said. ‘They allow him to grow closer to God without being a connection to the latest thing in the news cycle. I would pray the night before and on weekends. What does the president need to hear at any given moment?”
He said the devotionals focus on three themes: God’s unwavering love for each and every one of us; how precisely to love our neighbors, even those who are difficult to love; and how to start each day with purpose and joy.
His hope, he said, was that they would also inspire others. DuBois uses Scripture and words by such noted writers and historic figures as C.S. Lewis, W.E. B. DuBois and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I would say President Obama is a person with a strong Christian faith and a long legacy of engaging the faith community to resolve national challenges,” said DuBois. “He’s someone who is not ashamed to say he is a Christian.”
DuBois, 31, served as associate pastor at a small Pentecostal church. He grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where his stepfather is a presiding elder in the AME church in Nashville. He said Christianity is a “central part of my life.”
Today, DuBois writes a column on religion and values for The Daily Beast and runs a consulting company that creates faith-based partnerships around big national challenges.
He said sometimes people needed to be reminded ” of the need to be still and to listen before we speak and to really cultivate a listening spirit.”
And that advice, perhaps, can be heeded by everyone.
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