Jan
17
This week we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day. This day is a reminder of freedom at its best and selfishness at its worst.
Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, “ An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
We live at a great and terrible time of history. It is a time of so much personal comfort. Even during economic hard times we sleep soft, eat well, enjoy entertainment with friends and walk safely in our streets. We have bought the same old lie that our concerns are more important than theirs.
We can tell you personal stories of walking through African graves yards that grow by over a thousand per week just because people can’t get basic medicines. We can take you into a 15 by 40 feet classroom in India, next to an open sewer, where 400 kids learn from one book. We can introduce you to a 13-year-old prostitute girl in Asia, who has been sold into the porn slave trade. How about joining us to dig a well for a Central American town, which shares a populated water source with 22 other villages upstream. Drive a few hours south and discover Michigan schools still desperate for teachers. Care to drive around our own community and meet the children who smell of kerosene and go to school very hungry most days?
Freedom? Freedom, perhaps to take another day off?
We hear ourselves saying, “but what can one person or one family or one group of friends really do?” Ask Martin Luther King Jr!
To live life is to write a better story for everyone. Take time to celebrate the past and make plans to change the future. Start by picking a cause. Talk to your pastor, priest or policeman about a local family in need. Volunteer your precious time at a community help center. Go on-line and research a cause, near or far, that your family can passionately get involved with.
Rev. King reminds us: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism (unselfishness) or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is this, what are you doing for others?”
He also said, “The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not lack of faith but superstition.”
This week, we give a day to remember a man who gave his very life to make a difference. When will the world stop and celebrate our day? We must go beyond Martin Luther King Jr. and stand up for all humanity!
Living Life (presently in Uruguay),
Hopefully making a difference!
DUZIE
2010 DUZIE.com
