I'm curious about the MLK Jr service you attended. I was too busy enjoying and shoveling our first real snow storm and avoiding the inauguration to think about it but have attended in the past.
Nancy, it was inspiring. The guest speaker was the bishop of a Boston Baptist church, and he didn't mince words when it came to calling out the new administration while also not harping on it -- he spoke to the longer arc of history and the temporariness of kings and tyrants. It was humbling to hear a powerful orator who shook the rafters at times -- a real tribute to MLK.
It actually reminded me of Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker's 1841 sermon, "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity." Interestingly, when MLK spoke about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, he was paraphrasing something Parker once said. (You can learn more by googling "NPR Theodore Parker and the Moral Universe".)
Thank you, as always. I appreciate your mother's statement and your shifting perspective on it as you matured. I still wrestle with "freedom." I think the Democratic focus on that word went largely misunderstood. Justice, safety, dignity -- they should all be components of a free society, but as you keenly observe, only those of us privileged by birth or circumstances can assume those protections. The struggle continues!
Jeanne, I think those claiming the mantle of patriotism equate it with freedom -- for some. Oddly, what they may really mean is more freedom, yes, but only for those who are already free. The politics of plunder meets the scarcity mentality. I don't think they can possibly comprehend what Fannie Lou Hamer said: "Nobody's free unless everybody's free."
Thank you Rob! And thank Mrs. K..
I'm curious about the MLK Jr service you attended. I was too busy enjoying and shoveling our first real snow storm and avoiding the inauguration to think about it but have attended in the past.
Nancy, it was inspiring. The guest speaker was the bishop of a Boston Baptist church, and he didn't mince words when it came to calling out the new administration while also not harping on it -- he spoke to the longer arc of history and the temporariness of kings and tyrants. It was humbling to hear a powerful orator who shook the rafters at times -- a real tribute to MLK.
It actually reminded me of Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker's 1841 sermon, "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity." Interestingly, when MLK spoke about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, he was paraphrasing something Parker once said. (You can learn more by googling "NPR Theodore Parker and the Moral Universe".)
Thank you, as always. I appreciate your mother's statement and your shifting perspective on it as you matured. I still wrestle with "freedom." I think the Democratic focus on that word went largely misunderstood. Justice, safety, dignity -- they should all be components of a free society, but as you keenly observe, only those of us privileged by birth or circumstances can assume those protections. The struggle continues!
Jeanne, I think those claiming the mantle of patriotism equate it with freedom -- for some. Oddly, what they may really mean is more freedom, yes, but only for those who are already free. The politics of plunder meets the scarcity mentality. I don't think they can possibly comprehend what Fannie Lou Hamer said: "Nobody's free unless everybody's free."