MLK Day

This morning Jeff and I had the opportunity to attend a breakfast to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. We got to sing "Lift every voice and sing" with the rest of community present at the breakfast. I've heard this song before, but never actually read the words. The song is about hope and trust in a God who has led through hard and bitter places.
I think Martin Luther King must have been a man of hope to be able to see a vision of what the kingdom and this earth should look like, on the way things God intended them to be. A hope that was not only for himself, but for all people to be reconciled to God and each other. I have been reading a book entitled, "Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living" by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. He discusses the hope we should have as Christians. He states, "It's natural and healthy to hope for ourselves, but it's provincial and unhealthy to hope only for ourselves. . .If we hope as the prophets and apostles did, then we shall hope not only for ourselves but also for people we must struggle to understand. We shall hope for people we may never have met, such as Indonesians of Chinese descent, mercilessly persecuted by their own military, or Korean Christians haunted by memories of Japanese cruelty and struggling to quiet their anger over it. We shall trust God to bring forgiveness and peace for generations we can only imagine. . .To summarize this way of thinking, we might say that biblical hope-the real thing-must have faith on one side of it and love on the other." He goes on to discuss this in more detail, I suggest reading it, it's quite good.
I see Martin Luther King, Jr. as a man who had this kind of hope and love for his neighbor. I'm glad that we have a day to remember and to hopefully catch his/the biblical vision for each other.