MLK day

WORK ANNIVERSARY
It was this holiday last year when I started my new music specialist job. I have quite a commute. I remember I was supposed to be there at 8:00 AM, and I woke up at 7:50. Horrified, I called in praying with all my heart that I didn't lose my job before I'd even showed up the first day. Luckily the gentleman running the orientation was very nice and even more laid back, and since I was the only new guy that day, he was happy to start at 9 AM when I got there. And of course on this day when I got ready in 5 mins. flat, they took my picture for my canonized i.d.

So today, one year to the holiday later, I wake up and am out the door in plenty of time . . . but today was a blizzard . . . and my drive in took 2 hours and 20 minutes. (That, by the way, still is not the record.) So I was very, very late to work again on MLK day. To add insult to injury, I was wearing flat-as-can-be ballet slippers with no-show socks. By the time I realized how foolish of a footwear choice I had made, I was many, many miles from home. So after arriving late to work, I decided I had no choice but to take an early lunch and buy myself some of these:

I resisted for so long, but today the snow won. This weather marched right through annoyance into the realm of the ridiculous. I could do nothing but laugh. And that I did. And I enjoyed it. Today for the first time in I don't know how long, I wasn't cursing the snow. And it was the worst I've seen since I can remember. Must've been the shoes.

FILM FESTIVAL
Jacob and I had an exciting weekend at an LDS film festival. The week before he, Jared, Jackson, and our new friend Sean worked feverishly for 24 hours to make a film, "Customer Service" which I acted in for not nearly that long. The film had to include a line: "Could you please," a prop: a band-aid, and have a theme: compassion. This is the third year Jacob and Jared have competed and this year out of 42 submissions, they won 3rd place! Hooray! This was an exceptional feat considering Jacob was very sick that night with an unidentified, violent illness. Congratulations! This is the first in a long line of prestigious film honors to be awarded these two. (And this bitty pic is all I got to show for it.)
Watch the movie here. It's 3 mins.

THE MAN
And if I may, I'd like just a word for MLK and others like him we celebrate today. God bless him for what he did and the sacrifice he made for what he believed. There's an incredible power in people who display such a depth of passion for their convictions. I cannot imagine the U.S. as it was in his time, with such rampant racism and divisiveness and the popularity of it all. I often think what I would have done at that time, and then how happy I am to live now when I can witness significant realizations of King's dream, like the real possibility of an African-American president for the first time in the country's history. I think we can all agree in many respects we have a long way to go, but it is wonderful to think of where we've come.

The following is the closing of King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," in response to criticisms he received from 8 clergyman for approaching the matter of civil rights in street protests rather than settling the matters in court. The story goes that he began writing it on bits of paper in his cell and as he kept writing, the jailers finally gave him a pad of paper, and this incredible letter is what resulted. Read it if you haven't. Read it.

"I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr."