Monday, December 15, 2003

Putting the "Pur" in my "Purpose"
(wait, I don't think that came out right...)

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." ~Agamemnon, Aeschylus

On April 4, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy stood in an urban Indiana ghetto, amid 2500 blacks, including some 200 black militants and announced the assassination of the great Martin Luther King, Jr. In his ensuing extemporaneous eulogy, Kennedy cited his favorite poet Aeschylus. He referenced his own personal, familial loss to the same hatred four and a half years earlier. In a word, Kennedy stepped into the line of fire and sought to explain that, while hatred may have a face, it has no determinant of race or creed.

Kennedy stood in the face of a potential riot and plead, "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."

My purpose, ladies and gentlemen? To bring understanding, depth and perspective to a world skewed by hatred, violence and the pigeon-holed, biased and shackled view of safe love.