How fun was that?

Well, it seems that people who can't change a flat tire shouldn't be allowed to drive.  That's how I feel for not having figured out for the past six months how to get all the Lithuanian directions off my computer.  Don't get me wrong; I like Lithuanian and certainly can read and write it - and enjoy doing so.  But it is NOT the language in which I want to fight with my apps, my google settings nor my blog.
Which has me ruminating quite a bit on why certain languages are better for certain occurrences in life...
Carmina Burana? Definitely better in Lithuanian. (Even more than in its original whatever).
Grocery list? Everything tastes best in Italian.
But tech support?  OMG.   I can't not have the English up in the bar to give me some direction.  And having tried to access everything from Google settings to Pandora for these past months in Lithuanian has me tired.

So, now that I think I straightened that problem out, I have no excuses for not checking in. It's been a long few years ~ but I am back to blogging.  Welcome to my world.

New Years' 2011

TIME to get back to the 3rd Conjugation.

 Some things real; some things fake; sometimes whimsy; sometimes ache.  Just like that 3rd conjugation - defy the pattern, enjoy the change.

It's good to be back!

Check with me often.

33 quotes I'm keeping since the New Year

 Well, some things are just meant to be remembered. Here are some gems offered me in the past 10 weeks.
Keepers.  Can you cull thirty things said to you that you'll keep?

33 Quotes Directed at Me Since January 1, 2010

or Things I can’t forget I was told:

1.   People need to be called on their bullshit.

2.     You're an easy lady to talk with.  I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and saying a little prayer (agnostics like to cover all the bases) that you find work and money for school.

3.     Being derivative is good – you make a ton of money, honey.

4.    You seem to be living a life of great vulnerability and compassion which challenges and blesses me.

5.     There is very little nutritional value to the potato (except for the iron in the skin, and beef and pumpkin seeds are equally good sources), and to top it off, they are in the "deadly nightshade" class of foods, which aggravate all inflammatory conditions.  As pain and inflammation are high on your list, I would plan for lifelong avoidance of white potatoes.

6.     You are a bitchy cantankerous sour puss.

7.    I am anxious to hear about your studies.  You aren’t just bright, you actively put your light to work. 

8.     If you are a Jayhawk, or just a Jayhawk fan, and you are in my address book, you are receiving this email. Sherron Collins is a candidate for the Bob Cousy Award this year (you probably already knew that!) and we need to show our support by voting for him.

9.   How can you sit there, not knowing anything about the rest of your life, where you're going to get a job, where you're going to live, and still have a smile on your face?

10.Yes. Your application is complete.

11.You're a tad younger than we are, but perhaps you remember the folk craze that went on late-50's early-60's. 

12.You didn't shoot yourself in the foot--that implies really wanting something and then inadvertently doing something that makes achieving that desire impossible.

13.    I’m hoping that Serena’s leg doesn’t fall off and that she beats Henin in the finals.    

14.  Nobody dishonored you or your family intentionally.

15.Hi Gaile, It was very good seeing you. You still have that great spirit that I remembered as soon as I saw you.

16.The word horrific is not good.  If you were here I'd give you a big hug.

17.Eat a few cucumbers before going to bed and you’ll wake up feeling refreshed and without a hangover.

18.You are a GOOD Chaplain.  You seem to instinctively know what the needs are or are not.  That IS a gift.  Go for it!

19.I too feel that it is so easy to be around you, Gaile. And I'm so glad to be reconnected. You know, I would love to have lunch frequently with you.

20.You are invited to attend an Open House at Catholic Theological Union (CTU), the largest Roman Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry in the United States.

21.                 I hope you had a wonderful time while you traveled the world of chocolate.

22.Were you in fear of losing everything, if you spoke your truth? I sometimes got the feeling you were defending something you were working really hard to defend.

23.Our conversation was energizing for me, too.

24.Your letter was the most acknowledging that I have received, Gaile.  Thank you.

25.I’m so glad they sent me YOU, a woman who’s been around. You are a professional.

     26.  Let’s just keep writing to each other on a regular basis and take it from there.


     27. I’m certainly glad that you burned some cookies as you made them for the boys.  I was glad to take them off your hands although I had a hard time getting the box open.


       28,    We all have had way too much to deal with to keep stepping into the same sad confrontations.
     29. You always used to be such a positive person.


      30.  Thank you for the smile....you know that it is good to smile and feel happy even for a second or two. Good stuff, Gaile


        31. Hoping for some good cheese and arugula, whatever the hell that is.
           
           32.  I've secretly believed for some time there is a racist element to the opposition to Obama, but I can't prove it.  I am praying for him.
        
            33. Crap, it's cold.

The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

The Art of Forgiveness and the Power of Words

I have had the luxury or bad luck, depending on your point of view, of once having participated in a dog-birthing.  My three young sons , their Dad and I watched our dear young husky/shepherd give birth to nine puppies.  She had mated in her first heat with the Chocolate Lab down the road -(and having had the kids watch THAT prompted my new BOOK: “Sex Education: Looking Out the Window at what the Puppy’s Doing”). She now was ensconced in a humbly-fashioned huge cardboard pen we’d made in a spare bedroom just for that event.   We even pulled apart one of the pup’s sacs as Champ labored to complete her natural task and was falling behind. 

So, you can imagine how close we all felt to those pups.  Eventually, we gave them all away - all but one - the runt of the litter.  He, named Peregrine Falcon for the ebony of his coat and some romantic book-memories from the boys, became Perry for short, and  along with his mother Champ, and our other dog, Uncle Jake, (a stray whose story I have fashioned into an article elsewhere), became the Gang of Three.  They would roam our acres, they would run off to the nearby lake, they explored everywhere within reason, and always returned, led first by Mom, then her son, with Uncle Jake bringing up the rear.  So it was for one blissful spring.

One day I got a call from a far-distant neighbor, leaving word that they’d been spotted some distance away.  I jumped in the car to retrieve them. Driving down our long, steep hill, I saw too late the wagging yellow blade of Champ’s tail in the woods to my right. Just at that moment, I felt the thud of my car’s wheel - and despaired instantly of what I knew was to come.  Please, I thought, don’t let it be.... But it was.  I had hit Perry - and hard.  

I pulled him out from around my wheel, not knowing then that I had broken his back. 

I knew only the screams that he howled into my chest, for over thirty minutes as I drove to the vet’s.  He lay across my lap, then a 40 lb teen, and kept trying to reach up at me.  I knew I must; yet wasn’t there something - I thought - we could do - not to put him down? My husband joined me there; it took but one wail for him to hear and then say - Stop the pain.  And we did.

Any of you who has lost a loved pet knows the sobs that wracked me then.  Double sobs - for I felt the burden of having killed him.  I had taken a life.  The pain seemed unendurable.  But the worst was yet to come.

When we reached our driveway once more, I saw then that the dog’s collar lay there.  I had missed it in my hurry, but now realized that my sons were gone too - on their bikes, looking everywhere for the mishap they felt had occurred.  Soon here they came - Mom -where’s Perry/ Where’s Perry? - they cried.

 Now, if your household is anything like ours was while raising kids, you know the pace at which life goes.  We didn’t at that moment even have time to process grief.  We had soccer practices to attend. 

“Get in the car, guys,” I said bleakly.  “We’ll tell you about Perry.””

And so - as my husband drove with the 7 year old up front, I blithered my way from the back seat about what had happened, my ten year old beside me, agog and then stricken. Shouts of rib-binding “NO’s” -and honest tears - hot, blinding, rained in that stifling car.  And then, we reached the soccer field, and my seven year old, clothed still with the armor of YOUTH, wiped his tears, and sniffled aloud, “Okay. Okay, Mom and Dad. I’m going to go play soccer now, but then, when I get back I’m going to CRY some more.” He ran out and onto the field, with my husband in tow.

But the son still next to me, now TEN, had no such protection. He continued to heave and cry so that I thought the  both of us would break.   And then, a miracle happened.

Somehow, he pulled himself up, and sat tall, and turned fully to me, and grabbed my face in his two little hands.  He pulled me to him, almost nose to nose, and in the space of inches and the wisdom of centuries, he said the following.

Mom.  It was an Accident.  AND I FORGIVE YOU.

In that moment - my body changed.  I felt an extreme rush of relief.  Not joy, of course, but reassurance.  Relaxation.  I knew in that instant that all would-eventually - return to well.  My sobs stopped. The heaving lessened.  I could catch my breath, as I took in all the while the POWER and the MIGHT of those uttered words: I -forgive -you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have ever caused an injury of sorts - whether physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have then known forgiveness, you know what happened to me that day. If you have ever been the brunt of a hurt - physical or mental - real OR imagined, and have had the GRACE and AUTHORITY and WILLINGNESS to forgive - you know what happened between my son and me that day. 

The fact is, it wasn’t he whom I had harmed directly, but Perry.  Perry, though, wasn’t around to offer up his love to me once more - to show me that all would be right again in my world. For that’s what the gift of forgiveness brings one:  the ability to know that another chance - another opportunity to live in better harmony with the world - is his.  (And if you know dogs,  you know that dog would have forgiven me if he could.  For dogs really are the higher creatures on earth, as still another son has told me.  They know the ‘Secret to Life’ and it’s very simple - LOVE and BE LOVED.  Frankly, these ambassadors of love are really our angels on earth...). 

But no, Perry was gone.

Yet my son took ownership of the responsibility of letting another human being know that even if wrong, one gets another chance. Everyone deserves it!    Somehow, out of the mouth of this young boy came the balm to heal my soul for a careless act.

And what I learned above all, is that words DO count.  When I heard that phrase uttered, in all sincerity, I knew that never again would I take lightly how powerful words are. 

And since that time, forgiveness in all its complexity has become my life-long study. More on that later.

Definition of Masterpiece: Kansas Sunrise as viewed through rear view mirror while skirting a hilltop on a rural road. Ahead sit redtailed hawk and fox - both eyeing same prairie grass prey through the mist. Stunning.

Airport Chapels

I have been visiting airport chapels since my ‘Road Warrior’ days as a professional speaker. Because chapels have represented healing and comfort to me since childhood, I have looked for chapels to visit in airports as well.
“As a traveler, I am always pleasantly surprised whenever I find one; most often, the space is tucked away and fairly difficult to locate. But once there, I sit down, breathe in the holy air and thank my God for a respite from the hustle of travel.
“I realize that my own journeys are not unlike those of early pilgrims.
“When I sit in an airport chapel, I often do not see the antiseptic seats or the few potted plants that brighten the space. I see instead sojourners from the past of every stripe imaginable; I consider how grateful I am for the safety of having ‘made it this far.’
“I think back to all the travelers before me who welcomed a moment’s peace in their busy day exactly as I do in that moment. I imagine how connected to my fellow travelers I am.
“I observe a woman praying her rosary before boarding her next flight. Another time, I see a Muslim, leading his son in tow, and finding a prayer rug to fold himself upon, facing Mecca and the kaaba.
“Whenever I visit an airport chapel, I first always look for the visible signs of multi-faith worship or prayer.
“Not all chapels are truly inclusive. Recently, I read a note in the chapel guest book from a fellow traveler at Chicago Midway: ‘Why have you no menorah, at least, for the Jewish faithful traveling?’”
If Kansas City's airport is to recognize the spiritual diversity of the Heartland and to be truly international, it should join other major airports by dedicating a space for what I think of is “time to get still.”
Said friend and KC Star columnist Vern Barnet, "I do not want government taxing us to support religious activities, but faith and secular groups could rent and furnish a space welcoming all who travel, making their trip more meaningful as we realize that we are all pilgrims on this planet, as the planet itself whirls through space with our lives unfolding." I thoroughly agree.

On Speeches, On Servants' Hearts, on Dr. Martin Luther King

On Martin Luther King, Jr. – His legacy to me, a second-generation MOM

In June, 1968, I graduated from Maria High School on Chicago’s South Side. Ours was a somber graduation – Bobby Kennedy had been killed the week before and Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered but two months prior to that, on April 4. My high school was situated directly across the street from the last “white “ park then and the nuns had sent us home, I remember, due to fear of riots in the city.

A friend and I had started a literary magazinethat year – we had already highlighted the tragedies of the 1967 Israeli-PalestinianWar and now were marching down the aisle to receive our diplomas to the tune of Climb Every Mountain – that long sad Mother Superior song from The Sound of Music. Hardly your typical Pomp and Circumstance.

And I remember thinking then, and knowing now

– that Martin Luther King knew something about climbing mountains. I remember how ANGRY I was then about his assassination; I remember thinking then that SOMEBODY HAD TO DO SOMETHING to stop the hatred. I remember thinking then that when I left high school and later home, things were going to be different. There would be change in our country. Would there? How COULD there? And who was going to do that changing? I don’t think it had occurred to me yet that it was every day people – you – and you – and I - who would be making differences – And the question here today is “are we making differences?”

For a while before the last presidential election, I began to believe that we just might be really getting there. I worked for a few months at an election office, where I was privileged and so excited to see hundreds upon hundreds of people come in to vote, often expressing that THIS IS MY FIRST TIME TO VOTE!!! And I would so joyfully respond – and don’t let it be YOUR LAST!! There was no doubt that things would be beginning to change. I am from Chicago, originally, and I was THRILLED that my hometown has raised up a new president – from as diverse an area, Hyde Park, as any in the country, and that my own son lives there today. But there is always more work to be done.

From my perspective as a mother who raised three young men in a Kansas City suburb, I want to be able to say

Yes, We ARE MAKING DIFFERENCES. And no. No, we are

not there yet. Here’s my personal perspective.

My mother and father had come to this country from the small Baltic country of Lithuania as refugees after WWII. They had spent five years after that war in refugee camps, and then made their way to Chicago by way of Ellis Island in New York. It is the story of millions of immigrants.

I was the only one in our family who was born in the United States. Within 6 months of my birth, my father left our family, and here was my Mom, 27 years old, with 3 little kids under the age of 5, and not one of us spoke English. (Actually I wasn’t speaking yet AT ALL!). My mother was a college graduate but she couldn’t prove it because she had no diploma when students fled her country to escape the invading Russian army.

There was no government aid then; no assistance.

She took a job as a carrot and onion peeler at a Campbell’s Soups factory on Chicago’s South Side and eventually began to learn English. After a while, she went nights to school to become a medical technologist and went to work in a hospital. She worked two shifts a day for over twenty of the 39 years she lasted at St. Anthony’s before she died. I never saw her through all my high school years except on Sundays, because I was gone to school before she’d come home and I’d come home and she’d be gone. Yet my mother was amazing. Every day, she would leave my brothers and me a note, encouraging us to do well that day, and she would say to me, “Gaile, you might not get the dishes done tonight, but that’s your second job. Your first job is to MAKE SURE YOU KNOW SOMETHING MORE TODAY THAN YOU DID YESTERDAY, because YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT TOMORROW’S GOING TO BRING. Your first job is learning - and learning daily.”

As I like to say since, then, yeah –

Things can change. Things DO Change. Things will ALWAYS be changing . CHANGE is INEVITABLE – but GROWTH is OPTIONAL!

So when I came across the speech of Martin Luther King that said:

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but

comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent,

I felt I knew what he was talking about. I loved that last line - a MAN CAN’T RIDE YOU UNLESS YOUR BACK IS BENT.

It was EXACTLY what my mother, as an immigrant to this country, had taught me. She would say to me,

‘Never mind that you don’t have a dime in your pocket. You walk with your head held high. Don’t ever slouch and cower – even if you’re penniless. Don’t let someone catch you looking down; they’ll think you’re looking for loose change! No, you carry yourhead high, like you’re a queen.

Let people wonder if you have a dime or 100 dollars in your pocket; don’t worry about what they think of you. You just worry about keeping your dignity. And you treat others with dignity as well. And nobody, NO BODY can own your thoughts or decide for you who you are. Always remember that!’

I believe that the power of Martin Luther King is that he shouted for all to learn the same things my mother was teaching me in our kitchen.. Dignity, faith in oneself, belief that a better life is meant for all peoples to share in is a legacy that was so simple and clear to me that it actually became quite profound. I hold all immigrants, all people of differences especially dear because I know what poverty and struggle looked like growing up and I listened atingle to King’s voice becoming a clarion call for not just his own people, but for all people of minority, of “outsiderness” to this, or any country, as well.

So, when I married and moved to Kansas and became a mother to three sons, I couldn’t let those beliefs leave me. It was important to me to rear sons who understood that not all the world lives in privilege and safety as they seemed fortunate to do. But they had to

know that regardless of from where, and how people spent their day, they were all EQUAL – people, too – PEOPLE OF VALUE IN THE EYES OF whatever Creator they held to be theirs.

An individual has not started living unless he can rise above

the narrow confines of his

individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

It was important for me that my sons understand the value of service. I believe that my legacy from Dr. King was that reminder to broaden my concerns for others. Perhaps not each of us can be senators or representatives or city commissioners or servants committed to public office, but each of us has a sphere of influence that we are the center of. Each of us has family or friend or coworker or EVEN A PET for whom we ARE THE CENTER OF THEIR UNIVERSE, or we are a light of relationship to someone in this world. It is with these people, in our DAILY interactions, that we model the words and wishes of Dr. King. I treat every cabdriver, every waitstaff person, every cashier and busdriver I see in as friendly a manner as I do the banker or the doctor I encounter. (That’s not to say I carry on with all these people!) but THE IDEA IS THAT NO ONE IS INVISIBLE. NO ONE. I remember how invisible people wanted to make my mother because she could not speak unaccented English.

Martin Luther King has said that Almost always the dedicated minority has made the world better.

And I believe that. But that minority is NOT just one

of color. It includes all disenfranchised people – be they struggling with injustice due to color or gender or ethnicity or language. I think of all the differing groups of immigrants who have lighted here, and all the contributions made from throughout the world and think yes, Dr. Martin Luther King was right.

Almost always the dedicated minority has made the world better.

And, that minority sometimes includes lots

more people than seems evident at the surface.

And here’s why I think we are making some

progress today, although we are not there yet:

I take example from my boys who are not boys today but men.

Each is seeking his way by

looking to service to others.

I truly believe that they acquired

“servants’ hearts, in a way, because of Doctor King’s legacy. By the time they were now growing up in school, it was so natural for them to think of people as equal because he had paved the way for that equality. Because of Dr.MLK, they don’t use qualifiers like, “my black friends" or that "Spanish guy hit my car." They don’t say, "the Chinese girl in school…".

Because of MLK, my sons see Obama not as the first black president but as THE president, period.

Of course, there is still much work to be

done. But I have such faith in our future together. They did not graduate with the same heavy hearts as I had back in 1968, wondering what will happen in this country. There are problems to face, but there is SUCH OPTIMISM, too! WHY???

Because of OPPORTUNITY. Martin Luther King believed in the OPPORTUNITY we afford ourselves in our HUMAN SPIRIT.

Our country, our government, peopled with

strong and believing workers is MILES AHEAD of other places in this world - miles ahead, in spite of fears and concerns of economy and of future. As long as we embrace together the opportunities afforded us in this country, we can continue the legacy of dignity, one for another, of the ability to learn something new each day, as my Mother used to say. America really was NOT kind to many minorities early on – but today, thanks to legacies like that of Martin Luther King, it TRULY CAN BECOME the Promised Land he’d dreamed of.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. – His legacy to me, a second-generation MOM

In June, 1968, I graduated from Maria High School on Chicago’s South Side. Ours was a somber graduation – Bobby Kennedy had been killed the week before and Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered but two months prior to that, on April 4. My high school was situated directly across the street from the last “white “ park then and the nuns had sent us home, I remember, due to fear of riots in the city.

A friend and I had started a literary magazine that year – we had already highlighted the tragedies of the 1967 Israeli-Palestinian War and now were marching down the aisle to receive our diplomas to the tune of Climb Every Mountain – that long sad Mother Superior song from The Sound of Music. Hardly your typical Pomp and Circumstance.

And I remember thinking then, and knowing now – that Martin Luther King knew something about climbing mountains. I remember how ANGRY I was then about his assassination; I remember thinking then that SOMEBODY HAD TO DO SOMETHING to stop the hatred. I remember thinking then that when I left high school and later home, things were going to be different. There would be change in our country. Would there? How COULD there? And who was going to do that changing? I don’t think it had occurred to me yet that it was every day people – you – and you – and I - who would be making differences – And the question here today is “are we making differences?” Or, as you program entitles it, “Are We There Yet?” (depending on who has spoken or whether I am first….)

For a while before the last presidential election, I began to believe that we just might be really getting there. I worked for a few months at an election office, where I was privileged and so excited to see hundreds upon hundreds of people come in to vote, often expressing that THIS IS MY FIRST TIME TO VOTE!!! And I would so joyfully respond – and don’t let it be YOUR LAST!! There was no doubt that things would be beginning to change. I am from Chicago, originally, and I am THRILLED that my hometown has raised up a new president – from as diverse an area, Hyde Park, as any in the country, and that my own son lives there today. But there is always more work to be done.

From my perspective as a mother who raised three young me in a Kansas City suburb, I want to be able to say Yes, We ARE MAKING DIFFERENCES. And no. No, we are not there yet. Here’s my personal perspective.

My mother and father had come to this country from the small Eastern European country of Lithuania as refugees after WWII. They had spent five years after that war in refugee camps, and then made their way to Chicago by way of Ellis Island in New York. It is the story of millions of immigrants.

I was the only one in our family who was born in the United States. Within 6 months of my birth, my father left our family, and here was my Mom, 27 years old, with 3 little kids under the age of 5, and not one of us spoke English. (Actually I wasn’t speaking yet AT ALL!). My mother was a college graduate but she couldn’t prove it because she had no diploma when students fled her country to escape the invading Russian army.

There was no government aid then; no assistance.

She took a job as a carrot and onion peeler at a Campbell’s Soups factory on Chicago’s South Side and eventually began to learn English. After a while, she went nights to school to become a medical technologist and went to work in a hospital. She worked two shifts a day for over twenty of the 39 years she lasted at St. Anthony’s before she died. I never saw her through all my high school years except on Sundays, because I was gone to school before she’d come home and I’d come home and she’d be gone. Yet my mother was amazing. Every day, she would leave my brothers and me a note, encouraging us to do well that day, and she would say to me, “Gaile, you might not get the dishes done tonight, but that’s your second job. Your first job is to MAKE SURE YOU KNOW SOMETHING MORE TODAY THAN YOU DID YESTERDAY, because YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT TOMORROW’S GOING TO BRING. Your first job is learning - and learning daily.”

As I like to say since, then, yeah – Things can change. Things DO Change. Things will ALWAYS be changing . CHANGE is INEVITABLE – but GROWTH is OPTIONAL!

So when I came across the speech of Martin Luther King that said:

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent,

I felt I knew what he was talking about. I loved that last line - a MAN CAN’T Ride you unless your back is bent. It was EXACTLY what my mother, as an immigrant to this country, had taught me. She would say to me, ‘never mind that you don’t have a dime in your pocket. You walk with your head held high. Don’t ever slouch and cower – even if you’re penniless. Don’t let someone catch you looking down; they’ll think you’re looking for loose change! No, you carry your head high, like you’re a queen. Let people wonder if you have a dime or 100 dollars in your pocket; don’t worry about what they think of you. You just worry about keeping your dignity. And you treat others with dignity as well. And nobody, NO BODY can own your thoughts or decide for you who you are. Always remember that!’

I believe that the power of Martin Luther King is that he shouted for all to learn the same things my mother was teaching me in our kitchen.. Dignity, faith in oneself, belief that a better life is meant for all peoples to share in is a legacy that was so simple and clear to me that it actually became quite profound. I hold all immigrants, all people of differences especially dear because I know what poverty and struggle looked like growing up and I listened atingle to King’s voice becoming a clarion call for not just his own people, but for all people of minority, of “outsiderness” to this, or any country, as well.

So, when I married and moved to Kansas and became a mother to three sons, I couldn’t let those beliefs leave me. It was important to me to rear sons who understood that not all the world lives in privilege and safety as they seemed fortunate to do. But they had to know that regardless of from where, and how people spent their day, they were all EQUAL – people, too – PEOPLE OF VALUE IN THE EYES OF whatever Creator they held to be theirs.

An individual has not started living unless he can rise above the narrow

confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

It was important for me that my sons understand the value of service. I believe that my legacy from Dr. King was that reminder to broaden my concerns for others. Perhaps not each of us can be senators or representatives or city commissioners or servants committed to public office, but each of us has a sphere of influence that we are the center of. Each of us has family or friend or coworker or EVEN A PET for whom we ARE THE CENTER OF THEIR UNIVERSE, or we are a light of relationship to someone in this world. It is with these people, in our DAILY interactions, that we model the words and wishes of Dr. King. I treat every cabdriver, every waitstaff person, every cashier and busdriver I see in as friendly a manner as I do the banker or the doctor I encounter. (That’s not to say I carry on with all these people!) but THE IDEA IS THAT NO ONE IS INVISIBLE. NO ONE. I remember how invisible people wanted to make my mother because she could not speak unaccented English.

Martin Luther King has said that

Almost always the dedicated minority has made the world better.

And I believe that. But that minority is NOT just one of color. It includes all disenfranchised people – be they struggling with injustice due to color or gender or ethnicity or language. I think of all the differing groups of immigrants who have lighted here, and all the contributions made from throughout the world and think yes, Dr. Martin Luther King was right.

Almost always the dedicated minority has made the world better.

And, that minority sometimes includes lots more people than seems evident at the surface.

And here’s why I think we are making some progress today, although we are not there yet:

I take example from my boys who are not boys today but men.

Each of my sons today is seeking his way by looking to service to others.

Now, I truly believe that they acquired “servants’ hearts, in a way, because of Doctor King’s legacy. By the time they were now growing up in school, it was so natural for them to think of people as equal because he had paved the way for that equality. Because of Dr.MLK, my sons don’t use qualifiers like, “my black friends or that Spanish guy hit my car. They don’t say, the Chinese girl in school….

Because of MLK, my sons see Obama not as the first black president but as THE president, period.

Of course, there is still much work to be done. But I have such faith in our future together. They did not graduate with the same heavy hearts as I had back in 1968, wondering what will happen in this country. There are problems to face, but there is SUCH OPTIMISM, too! WHY????

Because of OPPORTUNITY. Martin Luther King believed in the OPPORTUNITY we afford ourselves in our HUMAN SPIRIT.

Our country, our government, peopled with strong and believing workers is MILES AHEAD of other places in this world - miles ahead, in spite of fears and concerns of economy and of future. As long as we embrace together the opportunities afforded us in this country, we can continue the legacy of dignity, one for another, of the ability to learn something new each day, as my Mother used to say. America really was NOT kind to many minorities early on – but today, thanks to legacies like that of Martin Luther King, it TRULY CAN BECOME the Promised Land he’d dreamed of.