Hear a recorded Greeting from Mister Ed Himself!
This is going to be a tirade written in stream of conciousness! I am fully responsible for its content! If you are offended by challenges to your sanity or intelligence, read no further!
Concider if you will...This year marks 30 years since Martin Luther King was killed
in Memphis. Whether or not his memory deserves to be noted by some semi-national
holiday will not be the focus of what I'm talking about. His ability to live by the
moral values he taught to the very letter is not what I'm going to explore. His
idea that universal love one for the other IS the issue on the table.
Listen, I want you to ask yourself this simple question. I'll make it multiple choice,
and give you only two possible answers. Trust me, you will pick one or the other.
What demands the greater measure of bravery? 1) Picking up a weapon in defence of
the principles you hold dear and smiting your enemy with righteous vengence as
ordained by several of the books in the Bible, or 2) Putting down a weapon in defence
of the principles you hold dear realizing that you have no enemy but the black coil
of hate that can only be washed clean by universal love as ordained by the Man
from Galilee?
(Oh, man here it comes...Jesus freak!) Well...sure. And Buddah freak and Mohammed
freak and Martin Luther King freak and Ghandi freak and even Jesse Colin Young and
John Lennon freak. The message is the music. Wild, free, spoken, sung or shouted it
still tells us all that to look into your brother's eyes and see yourself is
close to nirvana. If you chose #1 as the correct answer, I need to hear from you.
I need to know why the escalation of violence, however sanctioned, can bring
about a world of Love. "Remember that Great War we had back in 1918, Joe? Golly,
the best thing about it was how darn good we all felt when we finally won. It
proved that war could be used to make the world a better place. The Germans loved us,
the French loved the Germans. South Africans loved the Dutch, Italians loved Yugoslavs.
What a love-fest.."
Now if #2 was your answer, be prepared to get hurt. This whole idea of laying down your
ultimate weapon, hate, will not be looked upon kindly. We are constantly being programmed
by politicians and the media to accept noble, terrible retribution as the only solution
for those who plague us. "Those who plague us" keeps getting redefined by the give-and-take
of public opinion vs. the medias manipulation thereof. Welfare mothers, illegal immigrants,
crack-addicted gangstas, flag-burners, gays and lesbians(in the military, schools,
Boy Scouts, professional tennis...they're everywhere!). Look, listen, and LEARN, gosh darn
it! Form some real opinions of the people you don't know by GETTING TO KNOW THEM! If
a gay person works with you, have lunch with them some time. Don't worry, you won't
CATCH IT! The black guy who lives a couple of houses down...when you drive by
him one day while he's out washing his car, WAVE TO HIM! See, that didn't hurt a bit.
I am no authority on this subject. I struggle with my preconceived notions
and mental stereotypes. I have not only contemplated terrible justice upon another,
I have contributed to it. In 1993, I served as jury foreman in a murder case in my
home county. The young man was a serial murderer who killed at least four people in
brutal fashion. We found him guilty and recommended the death penalty. The families
of the victims were there. Nobody from his family came. When the verdict was read,
some cried, some exalted. Nobody won.
We will never stamp out evil. It grows among us, somtimes visble but mostly
hidden and festering. What we can do is see the evil within our own souls and
exorcise it. Then teach our children that Jose and Loquann and Leslie and Hans
and Jaime and Mariko and all the rest are family members who are deserving of all
our love and R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Dedicated to MLK 1/19/98
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