On January the 19th we will celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In most states this is a Federal holiday. On January 20th we will swear in Barack Obama, our first Black President of the United States of America. On August 28, 1963 Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In his speech he talked of equality for all Americans. He spoke of the one hundred years that had passed from the time on the Emancipation Proclamation that should have freed blacks in America but as he said “the negro still is not free”. Dr. King had the vision of God in this speech. Forty-six years later we still don’t see it. We stand ready to inaugurate our first black president, at the time of his speech no one thought this would come so soon. I am so glad that this time has come to America but this not even the first step in the dream that Dr. King told us of.
Today read about three American lives lost, not in a war with the enemy, not in a foreign land, or distant shore but here in America. Today I read about Roy Brown who robbed a bank and got a 15 years sentence for the one hundred dollars he took because he was homless and hungry. Today I read about Johannes Mehserles, 27, and Oscar Grant III, 22. Mehserles was a Bay Area Rapid Tranist officer in Oakland Ca. who is accused of shooting Grant in the back while on the ground and unarmed. These lives can not be saved.
Today I write this post in search of that Promise Land. America’s change is almost too slow to bare. We do not seek that heart change that America needs we only want the superficial change that we can pose for pictures and make the feel good story of the day. We hold each other at arms distance and speak empty promises and toss died and dying flowers at the problems.
STOP!
It is time to open our arms to embrace each other in love. Take the hand of your brothers and sisters then show them where you grow the flowers. Let’s teach each other to love not to hate.
