Friday, April 04, 2008

The Power of Words



"My favorite poem, my — my favorite poet was Aeschylus," Robert Kennedy said, "and he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.


"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, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."


You can read the full text of the speech here.

Or listen to the story from Morning Edition, today, forty years after Martin Luther King Jr was shot.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

ACTIONS SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS...

Anonymous said...

... it is best to leave in the DARK that which needs to always be reminded of the Light...

for there are 3 constants (as Buddha once mentioned) that never for too long remain hidden, the Sun, the Moon, and the TRUTH...

and so long no matter consequence, ONE abides by that fundamental of all principles, OUR destiny is made all the more evident as we emerge from the very darkness we have struggled to overcome...

yet truths are no good spoken, they should be as natural as a breath of Life, instinctive not unlike a baby bird that spreads it's wings and takes flight...

when truth needs discussion, dissection as to relevance, justification and or credibility...

when it needs reiteration, a reminding for the simple sake of rationale, reason, and or a sense of stability...

then sadly, the Spoken and or Written Word, albeit expressed however eloquently, yield neither power nor conviction...

but only serves to reveal an existence deemed rather shallow and quite empty...

-177

Anonymous said...

That is the biggest pile of BS I have ever seen commited into writing. Love, compassion, blah blah blah... typical liberal drama. Get up off your chair and do something anything besides rant about what this country does or does not need and the last time I checked, if you are going to sit there and continue to harp on the state of affairs between whites and blacks, solve your issues already. There are other people out here that just don't seem to have a problem getting along.

JeSais said...

anonymous #1. not sure who you are calling to action, but thanks for stopping by.

anonymous #2: not sure what the 177 refers to....

anonymous #3 um, I'm sure Robert Kennedy appreciates your criticism and I'm sure if he weren't dead, he would get up off his liberal chair.

Shama-Lama Mama said...

HAHAHAHA!! That is the best dang comeback EVAH! I almost fell off my liberal chair, laughing!

I am guessing #1 and #3 are one and the same.

Tamar Orvell said...

Interesting that you didn't delete the spam.... the only aspect of you that I might call super-liberal;-)

xoxo from your just plain vanilla liberal pal, about to put aside my project and go out to soak up some of Tel Aviv's neat rays and amazing edibles... Yum. Better than fighting spammers or even thinking about them.