For Those Who Come After Us

Fionn's dedication ceremony is tomorrow and my minister asked me to arrange the ceremony, so I spent a portion of yesterday pouring over quotes and readings about children. I came across this reading, which summarizes perfectly how I've been feeling lately (although it's too dark to include in the ceremony):

"We pray for those who come after us, for our children, and the children of our friends, and for all the young lives that are marching up from the gates of birth, pure and eager, with the morning sunshine on their faces. We remember with a pang that these will live in the world we are making for them. We are wasting the resources of the earth in our headlong greed, and they will suffer want. We are building sunless houses and joyless cities for our profit, and they must dwell therein. We are making the burden heavy and the pace of work pitiless, and they will fall wan and sobbing by the wayside. We are poisoning the air of our land by our lies and our uncleanness, and they will breathe it.

"We have cried out in agony when the sins of our fathers have been visited upon us. Save us from maiming the innocent ones who come after us by the added cruelty of our sins. Help us to break the ancient force of evil by a steadfast will and to endow our children with finer ideals and nobler thoughts. Grant us to leave the earth fairer than we found it; to build upon it cities of hope in which the cry of needless pain shall cease. May we be granted a vision of the far-off years as they may be if redeemed by us that we may take heart and do battle for our children."

From For Those Who Come After Us by Walter Rauschenbusch

Monday Musings

When I was in the eighth grade, I had a geometry teacher named Art Hunter. He was a tiny man in his 60's or 70's with cheerful eyes and a head of thin gray hair cropped into a military buzz cut. I'm not sure how it started (and I won't venture a guess in case someone incriminates my memory), but somehow I started writing a daily quote on the white board at the beginning of each class. I don't know how this started, but I do know why I kept doing it - it had the double benefit of getting him to share witty stories and his thoughts on life, as well as taking up much-hated math time.

By the end of the year, I knew very little about geometry, but a lot more about life thanks to Mr. Hunter. In addition to discussing quotes each day, he had a host of memorable nick names for me, including "squints" (this is when I discovered my contact prescription wasn't strong enough), "veg-head" and "carrot-top" (he found endless joy in teasing me about being a vegetarian), and Cassiopeia (along with thousands of other variations on my name). I adored that man.

I sometimes wonder if he's still around my hometown, but seeing as he was already advanced in age in middle school, I'm afraid to do research and discover he has passed away.

I'd prefer to imagine him still out there, teaching and teasing another class of students. And in honor of him, I thought I would randomly share some interesting quotes as I find them.

Here's one I've been chewing on today, from Martin Luther King's sermon entitled "I See the Promised Land," given on the eve of assassination:

It's alright to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's alright to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.