So I'm going to try to get back into the swing of this thing and start posting again. I created this blog a couple of years ago as part of a class assignment and always intended to carry it further but never did. Now I'm chilling on the classes for a quarter and doing an internship so I hypothetically have more time to sit and muse for no apparent purpose. Also my interest was piqued a week or so ago reading a First Things article (by Alan Jacobs if I recall correctly) about using a blog as a "common place," in the medieval definition--in other words as a place to record the thoughts, ideas and words of others that one has read/heard/interacted with rather than simply as a soap box. There being enough soap boxes in the world and not really expecting any one to read this thing but myself and a few friends, I thought it would be worth trying.
So, first posting comes from an LA Times Op/Ed piece a month back by Michael Dyson reflecting on Jeremiah Wright and black theology. Mr. Wright seems quite intent on cultivating his radical and over-the-top image, and I by no means endorse his rhetoric, but Dyson uses this as a chance to look back at some of the harsher words of Martin Luther King Jr. and draws some interesting points. His final paragraph is particularly striking to me:
"Obama has seized on the early King to remind Americans about what we can achieve when we allow our imaginations to soar high as we dream big. Wright has taken after the later King, who uttered prophetic truths that are easily caricatured when snatched from their religious and racial context. What united King in his early and later periods is the incurable love that fueled his hopefulness and rage. As King's example proves, as we dream, we must remember the poor and vulnerable who live a nightmare. And as we strike out in prophetic anger against injustice, love must cushion even our hardest blows."
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