I'm a martial artist and an assitant martial arts instructor. This year, I'll earn my Black Belt in the Jhoon Rhee Tae Kwon Do system and I'm grateful for my instructors and classmates who have been encouraging me, challenging me and training me.
Tonight, as I was training with my classmates in self-defense, I was partnered up with a man at least 6" taller than me. He's a gentle giant and probably 25 years my elder.
I love his attitude. You can tell he's there for fun, fitness and self-defense and that he enjoys himself too. He and I both share a commonality as well-- we leave a lot of "progress" on the floor when we train (yeah, I'm referring to sweat).
Anyway, tonight I had a moment half-way though mastering our self-defense moves that he and I represent EXACTLY what Martin Luther King, Jr. had hoped for when he became a leading voice in the conversation about "all men being equal."
My partner is African-American and I'm WASP (you know, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). And there we were on MLK day laughing, training, sweating together. No inkling of awkwardness. No judging. Just two men having fun and learning together.
It was a beautiful moment when I realized that THIS is what Martin Luther King, Jr. had hoped to see. We represented his dream.
Then, as I sat with it a bit longer, I saw that this was not only his dream. Martin Luther King, Jr. in all his eloquence and passion was a brilliant reflection of God's dream. Under Jesus' Kingship, Scripture tells us that "In Christ you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:26-28, NIV
And THAT'S what made me pause with awe and wonder, I was getting a glimpse of God's dream for humanity on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as an African-American man and an Anglo man were sweating, training and having fun together as brothers.
I look forward to one day having long conversations with a man that deeply radiated Jesus' presence in this life and I'm truly grateful for God's voice present in Martin Luther King, Jr's message of compassion... in the name of love.
