Waking up to the true freedom of the human spirit against all odds

"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. Under the applicable copyright laws, the speech will remain under copyright in the United States until 70 years after King's death, through 2038. Sorry for audio-video sync problem"

(above is the accompanying note on the "Rare Facts" YouTube channel)

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"... but we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn't bend on its own ..."

(President Barack Obama)

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Early this morning, the words "free at last" appeared in my thoughts and led to this post.

At the beginning of April 2020, a few days before the anniversary of the day Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered in 1968, I woke up from a horrific nightmare of mindless violence which included abject isolation and fear.  We all have dreams of freedom, and we all have unspeakable nightmares.  During these past months, it is a series of nightmares that have shown me what I cannot ignore when I am awake.

Some dreams and nightmares are over.  Some follow us into all of our waking moments.  We do not have to live in fear.  This morning I remembered this message, also from Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968:

"... And then I got into Memphis, and some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out of what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will, and He's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Chief Seattle

" ... the love that moves the sun and other stars ..." / "... unarmed truth and unconditional love ..."

Thanks to  "the cassandra pages" for leading me to read "We Can't Comprehend This Much Sorrow"

Thanks to Dante Alighieri and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy.

A Hard Rain Is Falling / Surviving Against All Odds

Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1967:

We’ve got to understand what is happening. Now they often call this the white backlash … It’s just a new name for an old phenomenon. The fact is that there has never been any single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans to genuine equality for Negroes. There has always been ambivalence … In 1863 the Negro was granted freedom from physical slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation. But he was not given land to make that freedom meaningful. At the same time, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the Midwest and the West, which meant that the nation was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor, while refusing to do it for its black peasants from Africa who were held in slavery two hundred and forty four years. And this is why Frederick Douglass would say that emancipation for the Negro was freedom to hunger, freedom to the winds and rains of heaven, freedom without roofs to cover their heads. It was freedom without bread to eat, without land to cultivate. It was freedom and famine at the same time. And it is a miracle that the Negro has survived.

Witnesses to the effects of the experience of being separated from one's parents / Confronting the reality of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse

As I listened to the official statements on this video, justifying separating children from their parents not that long ago, I heard this voice:

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Today I heard Madeleine Dion Stout, too, among others who spoke on the video and who give me hope:

"... I'd like us all to be part of a team that really makes a lasting difference for not only residential school survivors but the other little children who are having difficulty today."

Easter weekend meditation / Something of a Zen koan / Long before the sky would open

... And Jesus was a sailor

When he walked upon the water

And he spent a long time watching

From his lonely wooden tower

And when he knew for certain

Only drowning men could see him

He said, "All men will be sailors then

Until the sea shall free them"

But he himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

And you want to travel with him

And you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you'll trust him

For he's touched your perfect body with his mind ...

(Leonard Cohen, lyrics from "Suzanne")  

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

(John Lennon)

... You don't need no passport

You don't need no visa

And you don't need to designate or emigrate

Before you can see Jesus ...

... You don't need no church house

And you don't need no temple

You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read

To see that you have fallen

If you open up your heart

You'll see he's right there

Always was and will be

He'll relieve you of your cares ...

(George Harrison, lyrics from "Awaiting On You All"-- 1970)

We don't ask for more cathedrals.  We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts.  ... We ask the Church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brother.  We don't ask for words. We ask for deeds.  We don't ask for paternalism. We ask for servanthood.

(Cesar Chavez -- Christian, farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist -- speaking in 1968)

If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth.  If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.  And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1955)

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

One time I trusted a stranger

'Cause I heard His sweet song

It was gently enticing me, there was something wrong

When I turned, He was gone

Blinding me, His song remains reminding me

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

He wages war with the devil with a pistol by His side

He's always chasing him out of windows

And He won't give him a place to hide

But he keeps His door open wide

Fighting him, He lights a lamp inviting him

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Yeah, Jesus was a cross maker.

(Warren Zevon sang "Jesus Was A Cross Maker," written by Judee Sill)

Martin Scorsese's Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ" was a cross maker:

Judas:  If you were me, could you betray your master?

Jesus:  No.  That's why God gave me the easier job -- to be crucified.

Vietnamese Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a book called Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers.  

Although I was raised as a Christian (first in the Lutheran Church and then in the Episcopal Church), I stopped going to church when I was 18 years old.  From that time on, I have explored many religions and spiritual traditions and am grateful for their teachings, but I have not chosen to affiliate myself with any of them.  

I do find the story of Jesus to be a mysterious and compelling one -- something of a Zen koan -- and I continue to listen with all my heart when certain people talk about their understanding of and trust in Jesus.

2005 / Thich Nhat Hanh's First Time in Vietnam since 1965

One day when I was in Paris as a representative of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation, to be present at the Paris Peace Talks, I received a phone message from Saigon, telling me that four social workers had just been shot and killed.  I cried.  It was I who had asked them to come and be trained as social workers.

A friend who was there with me, said, "Thây, you are a kind of general leading a nonviolent army, and when your army is working for love and reconciliation, there will surely be casualties.  There is no need to cry."

I said, "I am not a general.  I am a human being.  I need to cry." Six months later, I wrote a play about the deaths of these students, titled The Path of Return Continues the Journey.

(Quoted from For a Future to Be Possible (2008), by Thich Nhat Hanh)

(The play mentioned above can be found in the book Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (1993), by Thich Nhat Hanh)

Martin Luther King, Jr., with Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966.

Thich Nhat Hanh visiting in Hue, Vietnam, in 2005:

Read about Nobel Peace Prize 2013 nomination campaign here.

Easter morning 2010

42 years ago.

An elderly Jewish friend of mine said in the year she died, "I don't have to be Christian to be moved by the life and death of Jesus."

...I keep traveling around the bend
There was no beginning, there is no end
It wasn't born and never dies
There are no edges, there is no sides...
(George Harrison, from "Any Road")

Listen.
Listen.
Listen.

Martin Luther King Day 2010

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Dec. 10, 1964

UJAMAA

Today is the fourth day of Kwanzaa (Ujamaa = Cooperative Economics), the fourth day of the twelve days of Christmas and the 8th day of Hanukkah.





















"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

















Photos:
Bellingham Food Co-op, downtown on Forest Street (photo from their web site).
Artist's rendition of the Cordata store, which will open in 2009 (photo from their web site).
Yesterday's winter light in the afternoon (my photo).

UNARMED UNCONDITIONAL

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY 2008

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

Love is the most durable power in the world.

("Calendar Series: 34th Month / Evolution of Forgiveness," painted in gouache and watercolor on paper by Old Girl Of The North Country in 1988)

BORN ON JANUARY 15, 1929

" . . . even a little of true nonviolence acts in a silent, subtle, unseen way and leavens the whole society." (Mahatma Gandhi)

It was on DECEMBER 1, 1955, that Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the NAACP, refused to give up her seat at the front of a bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. On JANUARY 27, 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr, a 27-year-old Baptist minister, one of the leaders of the ensuing Montgomery Bus Boycott, had this experience:

"I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.

The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."

At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."

(from Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story)

Martin Luther King, Jr, would have been 79 years old today. Imagine.

A Civil Rights Timeline

TO DRAW IS TO LOVE AGAIN

(40-minute drawing, 4:40 to 5:20 a.m. -- 6B pencil on heavy weight, medium tooth surface, 9 x 12 Canson drawing pad, while listening to "Chants of India," which plays for approximately 1 hour and is a work of love by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. Contour drawings come from "paused" frames from Martin Scorsese's film on DVD, "No Direction Home.")

"We invent nothing, truly. We borrow and re-create. We uncover and discover. All has been given, as the mystics say. We have only to open our eyes and hearts, to become one with that which is.
(quote by Henry Miller, from Zen Calendar, December 20, 2007)

Henry Miller said, "To paint is to love again."

















(Photo of me taken in Plain, Washington, by V.M., who will remain anonymous, unless I'm instructed otherwise)

See Denise Levertov's, "Celebration" at wood s lot.

UNTITLED / FROM A DREAM DURING WARTIME (EARLY 1970s)

This morning while reading The Sandbox, I found
this and this on a blog from Afghanistan written by a man with 100 days left before his return to the United States .

May all soldiers return home safely. May I continue to listen to soldiers and their families who speak from all points of view.

In STRENGTH TO LOVE, a collection of sermons by Martin Luther King, Jr., the first sermon is titled "A tough mind and a tender heart." In this sermon he says, "We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart."

A tough mind and a tender heart is what I am looking for in our next president. Whom, I wonder, would Martin Luther King, Jr., who took a clear and courageous stand against the war in Vietnam, vote for in 2008?

I don't presume to have the answer.

(Untitled drawing in India ink by Old Girl Of The North Country)