You know I need you. We’re wired for connection, Love and belonging.
Me (Jan) with Lexi, Bernie & Suz
Birthday girl needs love. Friends need connectivity. We crave relations.
We’re in the same nest. We’re born in this together. But don’t smother me!
I rise with the sun Into a brand new morning Facing a new day.
Connected to God. Learning to live cautiously, Leaning on my Lord.
Proverbs 27:17
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
When is it Time?
If baby robin #4 in that nest up there doesn’t sharpen her will, poke her beak up with the rest, and open up, she will be doomed to the nest forever!
So, we who need one another are asking ourselves, “When it it time to open up? When it it time to let our courage and our natural need for connections take hold? When can we do it safely?”
Should we wear a mask or not? Should we join the protestors or not? When it is time to believe COVID-19 is safely at bay?
Each Person is Different
Not only is each person different, but each area of our world is different, too. Here in Montana, I could join my friends for a small birthday gathering outside (only 7 of us) and feel safe. I realize everyone in the world does not have that luxury.
But while we each are different, so are we all alike in many ways. We all crave genuine connection.
Matthew Lieberman, a Harvard-trained psychologist wrote,
“The human brain is wired to be social. Love and belonging might seem like a convenience we can live without, but our biology is built to thirst for connection because it is linked to our most basic survival needs.”
Birds of a feather Flock together, connecting Love and harmony.
Likewise, we humans Crave times to touch each other. Isolation hurts!
This rampant racism and blatant injustice must stop!
Pray for “Giant George” (nicknamed “Big Floyd”) and his family.
Reread MLK’s “I Have a Dream.”
It’s well overdue.
I Have a Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963. Fifty-seven years later, it is time to revisit this unfulfilled dream. LET’S MAKE THIS DREAM COME TRUE!! Be a catalyst for long overdue change and racial equality. Let’s reach out, dissolve all divides, and just love one another!!!!
Time to revisit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s dream, hear his peaceful pursuit of racial equality, and time to MAKE THIS DREAM A REALITY!
(The bold print in this speech are my emphasis. I feel those statements are so appropriate to the injustice and the reactions seen today – May 29, 2020… a sad time in America’s history amidst this George Floyd travesty and the COVID-19 that sees not color or class, but preys on areas of density and poverty).
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“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.
And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men – yes, black men as well as white men – would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual…
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.
Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom…
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality…
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. …
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when we see this happen, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”
Here is American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) as he addressed crowds during the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, in 1963 where he gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.
Do not let Martin Luther King Jr’s dream die. Do not let George Floyd’s death be in vain. Let your righteous anger spur you to action. Pray that God will show us what He wants us to do next in the memory and honor of MLK,Jr. and “Big Floyd.” Make their lives count. Make the dream a reality!
Expand your peripheral vision
To see blessings in unexpected places.
How could Jonah in the whale do so
While he was down under – sleeping?
Reading the first chapter of Jonah,
I discovered Jonah sleeping below deck.
The sailors found him there, too.
They found he was the cause of the storm.
They tried to save the ship and him
By aggressively rowing toward shore,
But God turned up the turbulence.
Finally, they had to throw him overboard.
The storm ceased. The seas calmed.
God sent a whale to swallow Jonah.
Inside the big fish, his vision widened!
Jonah was able to see the big picture.
You can’t hop a ship to get away
From the tasks God puts before you.
You have to stay and face the storm.
He sends turbulence to teach us.
We are in the midst of a storm today.
There is no end in sight for this virus.
God needs us to grow spiritually, and
Learn to rely on Him for our rescue.
Take comfort in knowing He’s in control
Of every storm that comes our way.
His mighty power and unfailing love
Governs whatever comes your way.
1 Timothy 4:4 helps us realize the truth:
“For everything God created is good,
And nothing is to be rejected
If it is received with thanksgiving.”
Are we to understand that this storm,
This COVID-19 is sent by God? No!
No, I do not believe God wills evil.
I believe He uses it to teach us lessons.
I do not understand the reasons why
Bad things happen to good people
Or why death rains down on our world.
But, I know God’s love surrounds me.
I know if He can send a whale
To swallow up Jonah and save the crew,
He can send a vaccine to cure this virus.
That’s how much He cares for me and You.
Expand your peripheral vison.
Look around you, don’t focus on what was.
Look to see the ways God is at work today.
Focus on what we have, not what we’ve lost.
Thank God today for all your many blessings. Thank Him for the people who step up, The courageous ones who make lives better. Don’t get caught down under – sleeping!
Let God tell you, “You are not alone.” Let God gently hold you. Let God listen to your pain and sing your worries away. Let God remove the darkness. Remember, He accepts you as you are. God is nature. He created the earth and you. You are never alone.
God bless you, dear friends. Listen to His healing words of love and let Him hold you. Have a beautiful Sunday evening/night. I’ll see you tomorrow.
