MLK Day is a day for reflection and introspection on battles non-violently won; a day for gazing upon the golden future and planning how to lift up and carry everyone there; a day for remembering that freedom carries a cost and, though that cost is often terrible, destroying lives that justice should preserve, it is still worth fighting for, for all the generations that will follow.

Even though much ground has been gained and so many bridges built, so much done that we cannot even conceive a return to the old days and their old ways, we have not yet crossed completely over that Jordan. Even if poverty in the US no longer starves its victims, it continues to kill in other ways, and it continues to be so very unworthy of us. Even if lawful segregation has been stripped bare of its base justifications, tacit policies and quiet acceptance of racial separation--as well as outright, if coded, racism--continue to undergird some segments of our society, including the legislation and its enforcement (or lack thereof) that supports them. Since that terrible year of 1968 opportunities have been lost, advances once thought secure have been overcome by reaction, and the energy for continued struggle has been dispersed.

But there are signs that that energy is being gathered once more, the disparate streams of justice are once more flowing near and in the same direction. History's quiet whisper, the soft voice that nudged humanity out of the caves and invites us into the universe, so easily drowned out by the daily grinding, is once more raising itself just above the cacophony of modern life. I know you hear it.

"Tomorrow will be different than today. Make tomorrow better."

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day.