Hidden Figures, Hidden Power

See the Movie “Hidden Figures.”

When you see transcendent truth relating to the same thing from two different sources in 24 hours, God is speaking. Yesterday it was a movie. Today it was the Bible.

This morning in my Bible reading I ran across the passage that reveals the racist tendencies of Moses’ brother and sister. Numbers 12:1 says, “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman” who happened to be Moses’ wife. Moses’ family didn’t approve of his interracial marriage.

Racism exists in every culture and every time period. I’ve seen it in white people toward black people, black people toward white people, white Cincinnatians toward white Appalachians, and black South Africans toward black Zimbabweans.

The best American hero we have in this arena is Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK day has become like Christmas to me. I don’t mean that it is nearly as important nor as emotionally rooted in my psyche, but I make choices to be in synch with both holidays. Among other things, I like my media choices to reflect the meaning of the day. So I went to experience the highly acclaimed “Hidden Figures,” the true story of the crucial role black women played in the early NASA space program.

I found it to be incredibly moving. How many of us have considered that a black woman did the complex math to figure out the appropriate trajectory and landing area of John Glenn’s historic Friendship 7 mission? I didn’t. All Americans should be thankful for the life of Katherine Johnson, the world-class mathematician featured in the film.

At one point in the movie, a white supervisor says to a black subordinate, “I don’t have a problem with you people.” To which the subordinate says, “I know you don’t think you do. And that’s the problem.” That subordinate was Dorothy Vaughan, NASA’s first African-American supervisor.

Many of us don’t think we have a problem with people of a different race or of a different gender — and that is part of our problem. We need movies like “Hidden Figures” not just to give us important history, but to also reinforce great biblical truths that came before.

“Hidden Figures” is enlightening, convicting and heart warming. Go see it and remember that the Bible’s truth needs to be lived more fully amongst people of different races and genders. We should hold this truth to be self-evident.