MLK Day, Monday, January 16

I usually begin my day with coffee in the bed and my Disciplines daily devotional that comes via email from Upper Room Ministries.  The readings have a single author and theme for each week.  The daily reading includes one of the selections from the week's lectionary (RCL) scriptures, a short expository essay and ends with a prayer and an optional "audio lectio" which I don't usually do.  The theme this week is "Courage to Change" and today, of course, references Martin Luther King.  The essay ends with this: "Today as we remember the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., may we choose love over fear, courage over cowardice, and compassion over self-interest." I join this as my prayer.

I fear for our world when where leaders choose might over right and followers do not discern the difference.  Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American) wrote today about heroes among us doing the right thing in small acts of heroism. Dancing Faith blogged a poem to the prophets. Great individuals like MLK inspire greatness in others.  They inspire us to greater collective good. Not one of us can do it alone.

I think of my father, John Park Taylor, Sr., on MLK day, not because they shared much in common, but because Daddy died on MLK Day, January 15, 2001. My father was a white, southern cotton farmer. He employed black labor and the farm at one time supported many families.  He made liberal use of the n-word along with many other expletive-deleted words. He was a deacon in the Baptist Church and a respected community leader.  He was like-wise respected in the black community.  He was a loving father who taught me to always tell the truth and to always stand up for my convictions.  He was a complex man caught in a social web not of his making, but one that benefited him and his family at the expense of those who labored for him. He had the reputation of being a "soft-touch" despite his often harsh vocabulary. There is much that I don't know about how things really were on our farm.  I was too young and sheltered to know.  I do know that I was taught to respect the basic human dignity of every person, regardless of their circumstance and status and that poverty was a condition, not a definition of a person. He was no great civil rights leader, but he respected those who were, who risked all for their convictions. He and my mother stood up in their small ways. And they taught us to do better than they did.  That makes for slow progress, each generation building up the next, but it is something. 

I am pained that our civil society seems to be sliding backwards. I hope and pray that what we are now experiencing are the last desperate gasps of the old order of hierarchy and that my children's children will usher in a new order of equity and acceptance. It's still not too late and I see hope in so many young people, our children and grandchildren. 

Speaking of grandchildren, I made waffles for Amanda, Bill and me from a sourdough levain started last night.  (She is spending a few nights while Laura and Mike vacation). I am glad to be at a time in life that the pace is slow enough to allow time for the culture of bread and for watching the birds at my feeders. Amanda will be here for lunch and back again for dinner after her softball practice.  We are planning hamburger streak with gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans.