Thoughts an a great rhetorician, a great man

The other day I spent some time decorating my door for Martin Luther Kind day.  It mostly consisted of putting together a variety of quotes.  It was powerful to spend the time remembering what an amazing rhetorician he was.  So beautiful!  For short quotes, his use of parallelism is prominent and powerful.  Then his complete texts are chock full of rhetorical devices.  I love reading it.  (And side note, I have such special memories of analyzing A Letter from Birmingham Jail with my favorite class of Northeastern students from China. Very interesting experience, with the American history, sociology, American ideals, geography, and religion all mixed in with lessons on rhetoric)

As for the content, there are a lot of themes I appreciate.  My favorite might be his focus on service.  Such as, "Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

And on and on.  It really invited the Spirit into my office as I worked on the project.  I don't know everything about him and do not have to be a judge.  But based on what I know of his works, I admire him.

And I so appreciate that his calls to action centered around the teachings of Jesus Christ.  I liked this quote, paraphrased here, "Some people insist on labeling me a civil rights leader.  Really I am just a Baptist minister."  It echos my own desire to be known--though others may label me as any number of things, what I want to be and what I hope people recognize is that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.    To take that away from Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is to strip him of who he really was. I believe that the light of Christ burned in him and that he was great because he followed Jesus Christ and served his fellow men.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 

What are you doing for others?

Happy Martin Luther King day!