Faith in the Dream

A pregnant young woman I know, along with her husband and nearly two-year-old daughter, are journeying around the US this summer.  They started near their home in Gettysburg, PA and have driven through tornado warnings in Ohio, to the sparkling white faces of Mt. Rushmore, furry bison of Yellowstone, and finally to the young woman’s former home here in Washington state.  They visited Mt. Rainier National Park and stayed at the lodge up at Paradise, rode the duck boats in Lake Union, visited the Oregon Coast, spent time at Sunriver, Oregon with family.  Then they got to stay at John Muir’s paradise, Yosemite.  Following that, they saw the Grand Canyon and are currently on Rte. 66 heading back home. 

I think this is a laudable trip.  Even more so when one is 6-7 months pregnant with the hopes of a new life to carry on in this world.  She blogs about her trip and says they’ve met some very nice folks.  America, from sea to shining sea.

In the newspaper today, there was a story about another couple that took a journey across the US from Key West to Deadhorse, Alaska.  Along the way, they noticed the diversity of color in America.  In Nebraska, a Sudanese girl and a white child turned a jump rope for a mix of children.  A former Mexican ran a bakery and restaurant in the heart of the Midwest.  Gosh, I remember how homesick I was for Mexican food when we moved from San Diego to Chicago in 1967.  There was no such thing as a tortilla or even a jar of salsa in any grocery store.  Now?   Pho noodle shops and Halal meat shops.  Immigrants are pouring in, in record numbers. 

George Zimmerman was just acquitted yesterday of killing an unarmed black teenager.  Why would anyone want to come here, since America is so rife with racism?  But they do.  Spending vast amounts of money for plane tickets, or risking life and limb to get here illegally.  

Coming to America costs more than a plane ticket or a trip across the Rio Grande.  It means to have faith in a dream.  For an immigrant, it is a hope of a better life.  For those of us already here, we might have faith in a dream of equality, of justice, of overcoming prejudices based on race, age, sex, or any sort of preferences.  Justice should be served, and we must rethink the laws that would allow someone to aggravate a fight, then kill the person reacting.  I can legally walk into a bar, pick a fight with someone and then shoot them dead when they swing at me.  LEGALLY.  Self defense, your honor, just like George Zimmerman. I am terribly sorry that Trayvon Martin’s parents are grieving over their son.  What a unfathomable loss. 

So right now we need faith.  Faith that begats hope, a faith that sings to us when the night is blinding, a faith which puts wings on ideas of brotherhood and opportunity. 

Mustard Seed

The mission of America, the time worn American Dream, will carry on through this, working steadily toward the mountain of freedom.  So today, I invite you to revisit that great speech of a noble American, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Go ahead, take the time to read this last bit I’ve excerpted.  Your tomorrows might just be that much grander for the match light of faith it strikes.

…I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"