Service and Martin Luther King

A friend from high school posted this quote from Martin Luther King on her Facebook page today, "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."  

Today, Martin Luther King Day is a "A Day On, Not a Day Off" as thousands of people from all over the country volunteer. I hope that many of those thousands of people continue that service and not discount the other 364 days of the year.

We've talked about the many benefits of service here before. Not only are you providing your hands and heart to an organization that needs you, but you are also helping yourself in your job search.  That aside, please keep the Martin Luther King's words and the spirit of volunteerism alive long after the sun sets tonight.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our local newspaper wrote an opinion piece about Martin Luther King, Jr. today. In it, the author wondered that if Dr. King had been alive today, what he would think of the progress made in civil rights. I think that he would be dismayed at not only the depressing statistics that still surround the black American community but at the lack of progress we as human beings have made as a whole.

I know that I can be naive and idealistic but I still wince at a segment of the population who through their words, language and general sense of entitlement feel that they can spout hurtful commentary about others. The problem is that now instead of hiding behind white robes, they hide behind their computer keyboards.

I do a great deal of research in my business and in doing so, read many on-line articles. I wish I didn’t but I often read the comments that follow the articles. Many of the comments are rude, bigoted, and paint a picture of a crude, dense section of humanity. I am thinking (hoping) that this is just a small portion of society that happens to have nothing better to do than respond to articles on the economy, our government, gay rights, movie actors, job search, murders…you name it. The comments tear apart race, appearance, language, religion, and are mean spirited and scary. Scary in that there are actually people who feel as if it is their Constitutional right to shout their steaming viciousness to the world.

The author of the opinion piece in the paper today said that if Martin Luther King were here today he would “urge us to confront these interconnections, and to recommit to social movements that change structures of power themselves so that justice, and not simply a “tolerant” attitude, is restored as our collective goal.” Well, I’m confronting it. As Dr. King said, “The time is right to do the right thing.”