Saturday, July 29, 2006

If you know me well, then you know that one of my heroes is Martin Luther King Jr. I am facinated by the civil rights movement under his leadership. He took the teachings of Christ and helped change the fortunes of African Americans living in the south. He did it by loving his enemy even when his enemy jailed and beat on him and his followers. Growing up hearing about Dr. King, I always placed him on this huge pedastal, like God was speaking directly to him and he was just carrying out the plan. In reading about him though, Dr. King was human. He made mistakes and at times got depressed. Before he died, and the riots of '68 were happening, he fell into a great depression. The voting rights act and the civil rights acts had been signed, and he really did not know where to go from there. Within the African American community, he had been losing influence to the Black Power movement. But then, according to Jesse Jackson, he would preach himself out of depression. He realized something. He realized that he could not do things on his own. He said in one of his last speeches "And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God's universe is made; this is the way it is structured." What he said was that we all have struggles, we all have sins, and what we do affects the world around us. But together we must press on together to overcome our struggles.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good thoughts ray. I really enjoy reading your blog.

kate said...

i had a really good conversation the other day with a dear friend and i think it goes along with this post, let's see if it will make sense. we often think that the passage in ruth 'for such a time as this" is for some significant moment in our future, a glorious moment, one of success, or a life changing moment, even if it's disappointing, or painful. we often think that we have walked this journey for that particular moment...since it's a 'large' moment of life. but really it's for every moment of every day, insignificant or great. we have walked this journey for this moment and every moment, 'such a time as this' right now, no matter what. so i need to live every moment as if it is what my entire life has been waiting for...i have been sojourning for 'such a time as this'.

did that make any sense??