Words' of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. V

How to choose my favorite writer?  Their craftsmanship, their message, whether or not I agree with the content or approve of the characters?

Let’s discuss non-fiction first, and I’m interested in the craftsmanship but mostly in the impact the work had on me.  First, I have to note the, “I Have a Dream” speech.  The power of Dr. King’s words was overwhelming. The content was spiritual as well as practical and that is also true of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and, “Peacemakers.” 

Dr. Martin Luther King spoke more than words, he spoke truths.  The leader was shot down and killed on my birthday, April 4^th and each year I remember the man and his message. 

I guess Martin Luther King is a natural follow up to my early reading of Henry David Thoreau, “The Duty of Civil Disobedience.” The book was a study on the duty of an American citizen if we are to become and remain a free people.  Unfortunately, today’s citizen is more grasping than dutiful. We act as if lines on maps are a force of nature created by God rather than a punishment by God for our foolish ego manifested in the Tower of Babel. We weren’t gathered together here as His only true people as some humans seem to believe.

Now, I’ve given myself away.  I’ve spent long, happy periods of my life in Bible study.  I know it’s not cool or sophisticated but it’s some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read.  Our schools have classes in Elizabethan Literature and Shakespearean Literature why not Bible Literature?  So much of the writing is noteworthy and who can claim that it is not as big a part of our culture as Shakespeare or that it is not a best seller?  Then how can people oppose the literature and not ban all other manifestos?  “Mein Kampf,” Karl Marx, the Declaration of Independence, or the text of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses” at Wittenberg, or Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail?” 

 All who are trying to erase it from our culture don’t understand culture.  You are the ones who burned books in “Fahrenheit 451,” or the ‘more equal’ pigs in “Animal Farm,” and “Brave New Worlds.”  The new Puritans are little schoolmarm’s running around with missionary zeal, glasses sliding down their noses, making sure that our speech is politically correct.  No, they don’t abolishing the pulpits they try to destroy; instead, they use them for their own message.  They were called 'busy bodies' in my day.

Enough!