Saturday, January 15, 2011

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

"All I'm saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be - this is the interrelated structure of reality.

John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms:
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... And then he goes on toward the end to say: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution."

- Martin Luther King, Jr - Commencement address for
Oberlin College

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. More than a bank holiday, it is a celebration of what Dr. King stood for: unity of humanity, fought for through peace. Today I don't really have anything to say; King's words speak for themselves, more powerfully then I could ever hope to reword them.

While I am not what I should be, and you are not what you should be, let us take hope in God, and take hope that King's message will continue to be heard and remembered.

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