I have always been a fan of Martin Luther King.I remember-as a preteenager-hearing him preach how only nonviolent and peaceful protests could achieve equal rights.I became more of a Christian because of his leadership role in the civil rights movement.After seeing pictures of white firemen spraying down black teenagers,and white policemen attacking elderly black women with vicious police dogs,AND THE PROTESTERS NOT FIGHTING BACK,no matter how some of my prejudiced elders and friends tried to justify these actions,I just could not buy into them.All I could picture was my grandmother being attacked by police dogs,my older cousins being sprayed with the very forceful fire hoses.AND NOT FIGHTING BACK.I knew their cause was just.I knew that these whites were ignorant and wrong.Yet Dr.King preached not to hate these protagonist,but to pray for them.He dared to live the Christian dream.It was mind expanding.Because they would not fight,and would not back down,they showed to me that their cause was just.And I became a believer.
It also tainted my beliefs.It made me see the power of assembly.So when Kent State happened,I fully believed that that students were using a correct form of protest.
I could go on and blabber long and hard about my feelings,but I would rather leave you with something from the New Testament that may have nothing at all to do with what we are celebrating today,or just about everything.This is First Corinthians,Chapter 13.It,in my opinion,deserves to be read at every wedding(it was in mine).It is just about one of the best descriptions of love anywhere:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous,love is not pompous, it is not inflated,it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.For we know partially and we prophesy partially,but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly,as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.In the end,there are three things that endure:faith, hope,and love,and the greatest of these is love.
In closing,buy someone a book for MLK Day.Pass knowledge around.
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