Some Quick Thoughts

I think people are funny. Why have a blog if you're only going to avoid posting and keep apologizing about it, or talk about things you'd rather do than blog? I know I do that sometimes too, but you know what I mean? I feel like I see that a lot on other blogs. Like one of my mission companions used to say all the time, "poop or get off the pot!" (I miss you Elder Purcell). And really, I don't blog because I think everyone has to listen to what I have to say. Well, not entirely at least. I blog because I feel like it's a cathartic experience. I've actually been a journal writer since I was like 11. No joke. And I didn't grow up in a church home, and nobody encouraged me to do it. It's good to just express and formulate your thoughts, or in this case, my own. I do it because I like to do it, love it in fact. And it's a fun way to include many different elements of media and add my own personal twist to everything that comes out on here.

Okay...last item of ward business and then we'll proceed to the sacrament portion of the meeting...Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. 40 years in fact. Did you hear that the LA City Council wanted to pass a moratorium on homicides for 40 hours in honor of his passing? What a hollow gesture. They didn't even end up passing it. Have you guys read anything by prominent black authors? Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, etc.? These people know struggle. They have some beautiful, powerful stuff. This is a short one that I've always loved:

Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Dr. King knew struggle and he was no slouch in his elocution and eloquence. I've heard some things here and there remembering his passing 40 years ago. This is a pretty good article that assesses the Reverend's legacy. Here is a snippet that describes his final hours:

The next day, King was in a good mood, almost giddy, Kyles remembered. Kyles was hosting a dinner for King at his home that evening. "I told him it was at 5 because he was never in a hurry." But when Kyles knocked on King's door, at Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, to hurry him along, King let him know he had uncovered the little ruse: He had found out the dinner was actually at 6. So they had some time, and King invited Kyles to sit down. Abernathy was there, too. King liked to eat and was anticipating a lavish soul-food feast, so he couldn't resist razzing Kyles. "I bet your wife can't cook," King told his friend. "She's too pretty."

Just to tease a little more, King asked Kyles: Didn't you just buy a new house? He then told the story of an Atlanta preacher who had purchased a big, fancy home and had King and Coretta over for dinner. "The Kool-Aid was hot, the ham was cold, the biscuits were hard," Kyles recalled King jiving. "If I go to your house and you don't have a decent dinner, I'm going to tell the networks that the Rev. Billy Kyles had a new house but couldn't afford to have a decent dinner."

It was about 5:45 when King and Kyles left the room and stepped onto the second-floor balcony. Abernathy stayed put. King leaned over the rail to gaze at a busy scene in the parking lot eight feet below, exchanging words with his young aide Jesse Jackson, among others. Kyles was just about to descend the steps, with King behind him, when he heard the shot. "And when I looked around, he had been knocked from the railing of the balcony back to the door," Kyles recalled. "I saw a gaping hole on the right side of his face."

Kyles ran back into the room and tried to call for an ambulance, but no one at the motel switchboard answered. He took a bedspread and draped it over King's body.

King was pronounced dead at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph's Hospital.

"Forty years ago, I had no words to express my feelings; I had stepped away from myself," recalled Kyles, now 73, the pastor at Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis. "Forty years later, I still have no words to describe my feelings."

For years, Kyles struggled with an internal question: "Why was I there?" And at some point, he can't remember when, "God revealed to me, I was there to be a witness. Crucifixions have to have a witness."

I thought that was pretty moving. And with that...let's go back to where we started...can you believe this post doesn't even cover 1/1000 of what I've been thinking about in just the last 12 or so hours? Crazy. Yeah, I'm a weirdo.

Tune in this weekend, same bat time, same bat channel. Be blessed ya'll. Peace.