We Can Dare To Dream

On Monday of next week, we will have the annual observance of King Day in our nation and community in which we celebrate the impact that Dr. Martin Luther King had on our society.  The contributions of Dr. King are many and need not be named here.  He remains one of the transformative leaders of our history.

Last spring, Toni and I participated in a re-enactment of a march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.  As most of us are aware, the Pettis Bridge was the sight of a brutal confrontation between the Alabama State Troopers and those trying to march from Selma to Montgomery in pursuit of voting rights for all.  Led by Dr. King and John Lewis, the march was a watershed in the Civil Rights movement and resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act.  The day was later labeled "Bloody Sunday." 

What struck me last spring, as Toni and I walked across the bridge with a few thousand of our closest friends, was this time, rather than being attacked by Alabama State Troopers, the Troopers were providing us with protection.  Times have changed.  Progress has taken place.

Dr. King spoke of having a dream that dared to say “When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

The prophet Isaiah dreamed of a day in which, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”  When it comes to the dream of Dr. King and the prophet Isaiah, we know that in spite of the progress humankind has made neither have to come to fruition; however, one day it will.  One day God’s perfect reign of justice will come upon the earth.  Until it does, we can dare to dream.




 

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