By Rube Ambler
One year ago this week, when this blog was known by few and posts were weekly events not daily dishes, I wrote about hope. We were inaugurating a new president and had no sense of the dismal months ahead of us as our country staggered through job losses, more dead soldiers, and security breaches. Still, we had hope.
I reminisced on the words of the great man whose birthday we celebrate today. The words I chose were those he used in his most famous moment to describe the Emancipation Proclamation as a “red beacon light of hope.” He knew that the hope dreamt of in that document was not realized on the day it was published, nor after the war it helped to end, nor on the day that he spoke on our National Mall. It still is not today.
That never swayed the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, however. Hope was the backbone of the dream. Hope was the foundation of a future that he could not see in August 1963. Hope remains the foundation of a future we cannot see today.
You indulge us every week, some of you maybe even every day, for our thoughts on music and books. Please indulge us once each year to honor, celebrate and praise hope. Please indulge us while we honor and celebrate the singular man who most singularly represents it. Please think of it just once today. Please do not give up on hope.
by Gunter Grass. All are welcome.
