We Should Share This Dream!

TheDiscipleMD

In August of 1963 Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous speech now known as “I Have a Dream”. I was seven years old at the time. I quote him from his outstanding talk.

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Let freedom ring from every hill… from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, 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!”

Dr. King’s dream was that everyone would be judged by the “content of his character,” not the color of his skin, or I might add, his religion. A number of years ago I listened with interest, when a person of my faith ran for national office,  as the political “talking heads”  decried my religion with all kinds of accusations. I was left to wonder, “Who are they talking about?” It certainly can’t be the people who I know and love so dearly. I  was left to ponder the age-old question of “prejudice” and how it has played out over the centuries against different races, classes, and religions. I am also left to ponder my own preconceptions of people and cultures that are different then my own.

Perhaps we need to reflect more often on these things and try with all diligence to “judge” all those we come into contact with by the “content” of his or her character. This is the way of the Lord. Let us be patience, kind, and open to all.  We should share this dream by allowing the bell of freedom to ring throughout this great land.




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