The research literature has identified
three factors that universally lead to stress:
uncertainty,
the lack of information,
and the loss of control.
Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No
The world would never amount to a hill of beans
if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.
Pete Seeger's Storytelling Book
In his grave, we praise him for his decency -
but when he walked amongst us, we responded with no decency of our own.
When he suggested that all men should have a place in the sun -
we put a special sanctity on the right of ownership
and the privilege of prejudice
by maintaining that to deny homes to Negroes was a democratic right.
Now we acknowledge his compassion -
but we exercised no compassion of our own.
When he asked us to understand that men take to the streets
out of anguish and hopelessness and a vision of that dream dying,
we bought guns and speculated about roving agitators
and subversive conspiracies and demanded law and order.
We felt anger at the effects,
but did little to acknowledge the causes.
We extol all the virtues of the man -
but we chose not to call them virtues before his death.
And now, belatedly, we talk of this man's worth -
but the judgement comes late in the day as part of a eulogy
when it should have been made a matter of record while he existed as a living force.
If we are to lend credence to our mourning,
there are acknowledgements that must be made now,
albeit belatedly.
We must act on the altogether proper assumption
that Martin Luther King asked for nothing but that which was his due...
He asked only for equality,
and it is that which we denied him.
Rod Serling, in a letter to The Los Angeles Times, 8 April 1968
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a
long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them
not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want
them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace
Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three
or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to
mention where I went to school.
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.
I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
Yes,
if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major
for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major
for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I
won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and
luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a
committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Drum Major Instinct Sermon
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 4 February 1968
Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"
Robin Williams, A Night at the Met
There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow
fuse them to the sky.
There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain,
because there was also happiness.
Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times,
they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.
While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.
There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.
And occasionally there would be one
who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh.
Naomi Shihab Nye