Hi everybody;

For those who don’t know, I’m locked away in a hotel room in California tonight…I’ve been here since December 10th and leave out in 2 more days.  I can’t wait to come home.

Some of you have never seen this kind of email from me, and some may wonder what kool-aid I’ve been drinking…but from time to time we come across things that may say something we never imagined.  Tonight was one of those for me, and I just wanted to share it – take it for what it’s worth.

I’ve attached a link below that, against my best intentions, wouldn’t allow me to copy the text into this email…probably better that way though.  I had been sitting in this hotel room watching a TBS version of Christmas Vacation, and laughing pretty hard about some of our own family humor in that.  When that completed, I flipped over to Bill Cosby in that sitcom where he played Dr. Huckstable.  I didn’t really pay all that close attention to what was going on, and whammo, I notice that he’s got MLK’s famous “I have a dream” speech going.  You know, many of you were alive when that thing happened – I wasn’t.  My history classes really maybe covered a paragraph of that speech.  The link below gives you the entire text of that speech.  And if you’ve got seventeen and a half minutes, watch the video.

While I would argue that much of what he pushed for 43 years ago is still a problem for the races today, try to read it with a different set of eyes.  Forget blacks and whites.  Forget what history taught and look at this sermon from a different angle.  Many of us, a great many of us, are saddled up with a heavy load right now.  Many of us feel oppression to the point where we just don’t know how much more we can bare.  Many of us may not admit to ourselves or others how heavy our load really is.  But at some point, few of us feel very free.

The sixth paragraph down (that starts, “We have come to this hallowed spot…”) tonight hit me in a way that it never has.  Throughout this speech, substitute the racial oppression with whatever oppresses you…again, no slight to the fact that this speech still applies nearly verbatim today.  But as with any great minister, Dr. King gave something to all of us.  They came to that spot to remind us “of the fierce urgency of Now.”  He goes on to say, “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.  Now is to the time to make real the promises…”  So where does that hit you?

There’s a Kenny Loggins song that I’ve had in my head for nearly a year – called “Conviction of the Heart.”  In one set of the lyrics, he says “where were the dreams that we once had?  Isn’t it time to bring them back?  What were the promises we held on the tips of our tongues?”  So 4 days in front of Christmas – which all but a couple on this email celebrate, what were the promises to yourself that have yet to be fulfilled?  Is now the time to bring them back?  Is now the time to take on those dreams and accomplish them with the fierce urgency of now?

2006 has been challenging to all of us in different ways.  We can stay victim to those challenges or we can recognize what “now” is all about.  Some of you have heard my more recent motto: If we spend all our time rehashing yesterday, we miss out on today…if we spend too much time looking way out in front, we trip over what’s right in front of us…today (now) is all we know…grab now.

I hope all of you have a happy holiday, and I hope all of you find some resolutions for 2007 that you can stick to for longer than I did with my weight loss target for 2006!

I care about each of you in a special way – thanks for taking the time to read through this.

Tim

And, here’s the link…
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm