MLK ...A VISION THEM AND NOW...

Cannon Julian Bartlet(2nd), Rev. King (m), Bishop James Pike (l) Grace Cathedral,1965
If you get to a certain age you become witnesses to the great events ... think of one, the World Trade Center, Vietnam, the assassinations – place yours here. Either by choice or circumstance they embrace our lives.

I have a piece of the old Berlin Wall on my library shelf. It came from a Lutheran Pastor whose church meetings and peaceful demonstrations in the late 1980's helped bring down the last East German Communist government. When I look at that little piece of concrete I marvel at the courage of those who march against the policies and the environment of that time.

Similarly the concept of equal justice that was embodied within our Civil Rights movement was given substance in own faith. On Saturday, March 20, 1965 I read a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Negro to Preach at Grace.”

The next day I sat in an isle seat when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped in to the beauty of San Francisco's Grace Episcopal Cathedral. He had just completed the march at Selma Alabama.

As he began to preach I took one of those little golf pencils from the back of the pew and scribbled down some of his words. “One day all men in this country must come together or parish as fools … we can no longer preserve the old order … no state has the right to do wrong … I do believe some day we shall overcome, some of us may not make it, but the Lord will see it some day.”

Note too long ago I found that sermon on the Grace Cathedral web site and once again heard Dr. King’s eloquence. His words are as stunning now as it was them … but nothing could ever substitute the electric atmosphere of being thereand feeling a sense of transformation in his voice. That service leaflet now sits along side that piece of the Berlin Wall.

I am grateful to God that Incremental events continue to move us forward and to know that that journey is at the heart of the American experience.