meaningful living

Life has been so great lately, I have been learning so much about so many different things.

For the past month I have been very interested in the learning as much as I possibly can about the civil right movement. I grew up in a small town in Kentucky that thought Martin Luther King Jr. was quote "nothing but a no got for nothing nigger." I know most everyone that is reading this is in utter shock by that quote but let me tell you something even more shocking, that quote was from my parent's sunday school teacher. I know, you are speechless aren't ya.

Anyway, I grew up knowing very little about the movement and really had no REAL clue who Martin Luther King Jr, was. I mean, I knew who he ways but I didn't really know WHO he was.

In college I took a class entitled Seminar on Vocation. We were given an ungodly amount of incredible books to read and asked to write a reflective essay on each. It was a bit overwhelming and needless to say I only skimmed through most, ok, all of the books. However, I kept all of the books with the intention of reading them at some point in my life. One of those books was the autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. So, with the whole Obama running for president thing I thought I better hop to it and learn as much as possible about Mr. King and the movement so that I could really enjoy the history that was taking place.

Thus far Martin Luther King Jr rocks my world. He was such an amazing man and I promise you that if I were to have another son I would name him Martin. A lot of people in the small little town I grew up in believe he started the whole movement. No, he didn;t, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He was just a well respected pastor at a local church. Rosa Parks was kinda the person who started this whole thing. Let me explain.

Something I didn't know that I learnt from the book was that Rosa Parks was NOT the first black individual to refuse to move to the back of the bus. She was simply the first black individual that refused to move to the back of the bus that didn't resort to violence. Thus, she was the first black individual to be arrested for soly disobeying the jim crow laws. The others prior were arrested because of disorderly conduct. When the black community found out that a little kinda hearted, good tempered Rosa Parks was forced off of the bus and into jail they became very upset. Violently upset. But Martin Luther King, being a passivist, discouraged a violent retaliation and simple stated that if the bus system was unwilling to treat Negros fairly they would simply no longer ride the bus. Why support (give money) to a system that is unjust.

Another bit of information that I have picked up from the book is that Martin Luther King required those who wanted to participate in the demonstrations (marches, sit-ins, boycotts ) to go through a training. This training was to insure a peaceful, nonviolent demonstration. He wanted to make sure they knew the proper way to respond when faced with violence. This was to be a peaceful movement. Unfortunately some white citizens didn't get the memo.

So, I contend that if it was not for Martin Luther King Jr the civil rights movement would have been even bloodier then it was. He stood in the middle of those who were content to be ignored and degraded and those who where so tired of being ignored and degraded that they had resorted to violence and hatred towards the whites. He spoke to the content that it was not ok to be content in the unjust jim crow laws and he spoke to the discontented that violence and hatred was not the way. "A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a REVOLUTION."

The amount of knowledge out there that is at my finger tips amazes me. I never want to stop learning, I never want to be that person that thinks they know everything and that there is no longer a need to search. I want to pursue my PhD soly because I want to go to school as long as possible and soak up as much as I can while I am there.

My year of discovery, as I lovingly call this gap between undergrad and graduate school, has been such a blessing. I have been blessed with the time to seek out things of interest and learn as much as I can. No deadlines, no requirements, no GPA's. It's fabulous!!! Stress free learning at it's finest.

I only pray that one day Paul and Anna will have the passion for learning that Roger and I have just recently discovered. My dream is that one day Roger, Paul, Anna and I will have indepth discussions about theology, psychology and philosophy over a nice home cooked meal as the grandkids run circles around the table. What a a wonderful life!!