We observed, as a federal holiday, the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr., on Monday, but the 94th anniversary of his birth was this past Sunday, January 15th. Dates are important, of course, and serve as pegs from which to hang observances but we can become prisoners of calendars and without thinking reduce events and their meanings to the lowest common denominator in a shorthand we use to manage the increasing and ever-accelerating rate and pace of change in our lives.
We
have stolen moments rather than meaningful ones with which we struggle to make
sense of the world and how we define our lives both within and without.
Reducing meaning and moments to slogans and labels allows us the false luxury
of ‘dealing with it’ without getting involved, like fast food for the mind and
soul, without any real nutritional or spiritual value.
Our city’s celebration of Dr. King's life was for some (but never enough) of us about 90 minutes of our mid-afternoon Monday at the David Ruggles Freedom Courtyard in front of our City Hall and as important as that time together was/is, how we choose to carry his message and lessons for the rest of the year and in each of our lives is where we need to devote our energy.
If all you perceive Dr, King to be is just a civil rights icon, I think you're missing the bigger flick. Civil rights are Human Rights and an even cursory examination of Dr. King's life and reading of his words can leave no doubt that equal rights for every human being was his purpose and goal.
And in that spirit, we can and must see his words as a call to arms for each of us to find her and his better angels and to become the change in the world we wish to see for ourselves and our children. Such a vision would not only further forge the next link in the philosophic chain from Gandhi to King but would, I believe, liberate each of us to reach and teach those like us as well as those unlike us.
As we should have realized by now, and most especially as news headlines from every corner of the globe make clear every day, it's a fear of 'the other' (be it race, creed, color, sexual orientation or preference, or political ideology) that creates the greatest barrier to equality, freedom, and justice for all.
The ceremonies at City Hall on Monday were, and are, important, for many reasons, as a break in the battle, and a reminder to reflect on what has been left undone in our country about the challenges we still face. As Dr. King, I suspect, would tell us, there is no color, gender, or religious faith-specific solution to what troubles and afflicts us. And whatever we create as a cure will require all of us but that's only fair because that's who it will heal as well.
We should cherish his "I Have a Dream" speech and strive to live it every hour and day of this year and all the years that follow because it has proven, in the decades since he first offered it, to be a fulcrum by which, united, we can change the world.
And that change, rightly, will be the true legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
-bill kenny
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