Hart to Hearts: Hope from Doing Our Part

There’s a phrase that Martin Luther King, Jr. picked up from Rev. Theodore Parker.  King’s version was simpler and more powerful:  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

What is most important seems always to be arduous to achieve.  Learning how to love — truly love — can take a lifetime of practice.  Racial justice has already been a long struggle and many days it seems to be farther away than it was in my childhood. The arc is long and even with all the struggle and failure, I have faith that is bending.  Hope can grow from seeing our part, and Alice Walker reminds us of what that is:

This is how change happens, though. It is a relay race, and we’re very conscious of that, that our job really is to do our part of the race, and then we pass it on, and then someone picks it up, and it keeps going. And that is how it is. And we can do this, as a planet, with the consciousness that we may not get it, you know, today, but there’s always a tomorrow. — Alice Walker

#31daysofhope