In Honor of the Reverend Doctor

A collection of deep thoughts from the interwebtubes, as true today as they ever were:

"Too often, our follow-through has been far less than our spoken commitments...Too often we have elected to be comfortable rather than prophetic. Too often we have chosen not to see the evidence of a racism that is less overt but still permeates our national life in corrosive ways." - statement from Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. in response to "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

The social revolution led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was forged in and grew out of the black church. But from the earliest days of the movement, there were also white foot soldiers. King initially came to national prominence leading the bus boycott in Montgomery ...Working closely with him was a young white pastor, the Rev. Robert Graetz. "We were here because God brought us here," Graetz said, "And in a very real sense this changed the character of the movement because it was not totally black then from that point on."...Graetz, now 82, still works with his wife in Montgomery for civil rights, reconciliation and a vision that began more than 50 years ago -- a vision they shared with King called "The Beloved Community." "We are all different, but we are still all together in this one relationship," Graetz said, "and the key to that kind of relationship was respect." - from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

"All I'm saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." - from Commencement Address for Oberlin College, 1965