Wisdom. Justice. Love.

Today I just want to take a second to remember the life for which this day is dedicated to. Below are the words of a speech he gave which are also used in a Linkin Park song, "Wisdom, Justice and Love". It is one of my favorite quotes of all time and strikes at the heart of human nature.

"I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice... A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, 'This way of settling differences is not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love..." -Martin Luther King Jr.


I love the climactic end that says how these evil things we do and force others into cannot be understood by elements we normally should be living by. No amount of wisdom can explain how humans are driven to commit such atrocious acts. There will never be enough worldly justice to repair the loss of loved ones and the destruction of peoples' bodies. And certainly love is not the cause for the mayhem we see around us.


Quotes like this spark a sense of revolution. It makes me want to do something about the crimes against humanity. I feel like this is what MLK would want this day to make people think about; What they can do to change the hurt around them, just as he strove to make right the wrongs committed against people. I'm reminded of a story.


One day there was a beach full of crabs washed ashore from a storm. A boy walked along the beach, tossing one crab at a time back into the ocean. The number of crustaceans were endless. A man approached the boy and scoffed him, saying that what he was doing would never make a difference. The boy silently picked up a crab and threw it back into the waters, to safety. "It made a difference for that one".


We cannot ever change everything about the world. There will always be people mistreating people or animals or the environment. What we can do is try. Where there is one person saved from oppression, a new life emerges. From that life may come other saved lives. We may never know the difference we make for someone else. And the world will not ever be perfect until the One comes to cleanse it. Until then, let us try to live every single day by wisdom, justice, and love.