Celebrating King

I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King, Jr., and so I was rereading some of his words.  In honor of his holiday, tomorrow, I decided to reflect on a few here. All blue quotes are his.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Sadly, when I read this quote, my mind replaced the word friends with family.  It is the silence of our family that causes such pain and loss and distrust of ourselves and each other.  So I am proud of us, you and me. for breaking the silence.  Even if it seems we are casting a very feeble light, our words are public.  We are speaking trusth to the power of silence.  Maybe we are someone's small, still voice...

There is family silence where we avoid truths and history and each other, and there is Quaker silence where we wait in expectation for Spirit to provide Light. I think perhaps in bucking the family legacy, we found the proper Silence!

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

I don't think I have ever been hateful.  I don't hate anyone.  I don't think I have ever hated anyone, personally.  I have feared many...What I am is apathetic - which may be worse. Apathetic is heart-dead, as opposed to brain-dead...But I do know it's true that those of us who are raised in alcoholic dysfunction don't know what is true.  We are taught that we are fine, when we know we are not.  The facade becomes the truth and we completely lose the truth.


  Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.



I have an apathy-paralyzed life - fear of moving forward, of getting in someone else's way, of stepping into a place where I am not welcome, or I am not suited. I am trying to recognize Light and Love and Passion in the small moments of every day.  Then I'll see if this quote is true.



Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

And so I must recognize revenge, aggression and retaliation in myself, and reject it.  I must decide not to be those things, to act upon them.



I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. 

Oh please let this be true, personally, nationally, environmentally, internationally...

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

And this is the most basic of all truths.  It is that golden rule we quote, but don't quite understand.  It is the golden rule of all religions and for atheists, too.

And just to brag:   With the help of Quakers, Dr. King traveled to India in 1959 to visit with Gandhi. The trip was the necessary push needed to galvanize Dr. King’s desire to employ a similar approach with non-violent disobedience protests Stateside.   - D. L. Chandler      (http://newsone.com/2139819/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-birthday/)



I agree with you...the tide is changing.  And as that happens there will be great fluid rushes.  We have to be able to ride the flow, trust the process.

Thank you for sharing the Aquinas quote.  Maybe I need some passion to warm up those solid, stuck places.  It goes back to melting, to being ooey-gooey.  I like the image!!!

One last thought...grief, rage, sorrow...transcendence.  I am not sure if I am in grief or sorrow.  I tend to think my anger when my children were young was my rage.  I will watch for glimmers of transcendence...

I hope you are having a lovely First Day.  We will have a bit of family time.  My eldest's dog was hit by a car, and the driver never stopped.  She died instantly.  We are going to finish burying her, and have lunch together this afternoon.  It has been a sad week...

Smiles and hugs and love,

Clare