The Day After

 

The Day After

I decided this year to wait until the day after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday to share my reflections. I shared an image of the man yesterday, with no accompanying words. I was influenced deeply this year in my own life by Howard Thurman’s wonderful poem about The Work of Christmas. I had known it for years, and shared it during the holidays.

“When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins.....”

I feel that way about this holiday, during this year, in this time. I am continuing to ask myself how I might do the work and better contribute to the dream so well expressed in the amazing work of Martin Luther King Jr. In what ways can I, being who I am, make a difference in the cause of equality for all my fellow citizens? How might I better express my awareness of the ways in which I benefit from the status quo that others do not? Will I let love guide me into relationships where I listen more than I talk? Will I, like Dr. King, choose love over hate while taking a stand for justice, even if love and respect are not returned to me as I seek to be about this work?

We have celebrated the holiday,. It is now time to be about the WORK of the holiday,. To work for peace. To conduct our lives, in both speech and action, in ways that model respect and equality. A friend shared with me how much they want, at the end of their life, to be able to look back and know they did their part to make the world a more just place for all people by how they lived, what they taught and what they expected from our leaders. That is a good guiding principle, whoever we are, whatever we do for a living, wherever we are from and regardless of our party affiliation. It is the day after. Let us again get to work.

Peace.