A little late for MLK Day, but...

Ok,

I always knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pretty cool guy. But for my Peacebuilding class, we read one of his books, "Strength to Love." What an amazing and powerful speaker! This book has deeply affected me, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

At the risk of beginning and staying up late because I can't stop, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

"One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of those principles."

The above quote is part of a theme throughout the whole book that makes its readers aware, page by page, that they are living far below their capacity for peace and good in the world. You cannot read this book as a feel-good book. When you read it, you feel your hypocrisies start to expose themselves to you and you feel inspired to be better.

"...we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy....This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

I like this quote and the sermon its a part of because Dr. King is so masterful at making every person into a human being instead of a monster. Even after being stabbed, threatened, having his house bombed, etc, Dr. King did not hate individual people or blame them for the evil in the world. He saw them as his brothers and sisters who were victims of evil instead of perpetrators of it, and he saw potential for redemption, kindness, cooperation and friendship even in the most ignorant and racist people. Here is another quote:

"To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour an beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

I believe Dr. King had a high sense of integrity, not just because he was a pastor and could write very intelligent-sounding words, but because he actually lived by them. He exacts a high price from his followers. He expects them not to be silent. He expects them to fight for what is right no matter the cost.

"Do not despair if you are condemned and persecuted for righteousness' sake. When you testify for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical...Sometimes you may be put in jail. If such is the case, you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It may mean losing a job or social standing with your particular group. Even if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Do no worry about persecution, American Christians; you must accept this when you stand up for a great principle."

Dr. King experienced all of the things he described here. He gave his life for the cause he believed in. I could keep going, but I think I'll leave off for now.

Calling People

So one of my goals in my class this semester was to connect more with people from my past.  This may be a result of being an army brat as a kid and moving many places as an adult. I tend to basically "move on" whenever I leave one place and I'm not very good at keeping up contact with people. That, and as silly as it sounds, it actually makes me nervous to call people, even or perhaps, especially, those that mean the most to me. I'm not sure why. I think part of it is I'm afraid to hear bad news or because I've not chatted with someone in so long that maybe they hate me now.  I don't know why I think stuff like this but I do.

The first thing I've noticed is that it's pretty hard to get a hold of people. The first time I tried I called several people but no one picked up. One called me back fairly soon--an old mission companion of mine. It was fun to hear her voice and hear about her family and job. She's such a positive person and she was a light in my life as a missionary. Best of all, she's HILARIOUS. Missions are stressful things, and she really helped me along with her humor.

After that, my phone got all weird and DIED on me! And everyone else I had tried to call tried calling me back during that time but it was a few days before I got a new phone in the mail. I made a post on facebook asking if people wanted to skype me. It was partly in jest, but I was happy to get in contact with two more people from the mission! My favorite couple from the mission.  I wish I had taken a screen shot. It's been a long time since I've seen them, and I really wonder why I don't skype more! It's great to see people you're talking to. They felt the same and we had a nice little online "reunion." 

After I got my phone I tried a few more. There were many people who couldn't answer and a few old numbers that don't work anymore. I called my great-aunt to wish her a happy birthday, which I've never done for her before. She was on her way to Mexico! I was glad to hear it because it's so cold in Utah right now.

So far, I've had some pretty good experiences. I talked with my adopted "Grandma" for a little bit to catch up with things. I haven't seen her and her husband in over a year. She's been very supportive of me in my life, and she was a role model in a crucial time in my life. It was a pretty normal chat, which made me wonder, why I don't do it more often.

I also chatted with a former co-worker. She and her husband were just called to serve as Mission Presidents in a Spanish-speaking mission for the Church. She and her husband will find out next month where they will go. Since the Church has changed the minimum age for serving missions, there have been thousands more applications than usual. The size of missions is increasing and there are more than triple the amount of sister missionaries! They have two daughters who are missionary age now and they are both working on their papers. Their oldest, a son, just finished a two-year mission in Japan last November. How cool to have an entire missionary family!

Still, it's been a bit scary sometimes to call some people. Some I really love and admire so much but I just haven't done it. I hope to buckle down these next few weeks and call up the people that I miss and truly examine my feelings of fear regarding contacting them after a prolonged silence from me.

So I'm resurrecting this blog.

For class. I'm in the last required class for the Intercultural Peace-Building Certificate at BYU-Hawaii. My teacher, Dr. Ford, has structured the class so that we as students created our own learning framework. We will entirely grade ourselves for this project.

As part of my reflection and accountability, I'll be reporting about my progress here on my blog.

I don't think I'll post my whole framework and goals here, but you can see if you'd like here.

I have several things that I wanted to do every week. One was contact more people in my life. This week I talked with a friend of mine that graduated last semester, my little brother (girl problems), and my adopted Grandma. I don't know why I get nervous calling people up because the conversations are always fine. It felt good to have more real interaction with people than just facebook or none at all.