Feeling grateful

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”  - Martin Luther King "I have a dream" - 28.08.1963

I realized earlier that this speech was delivered exactly fifty seven years ago today, and was in turn, eight years to the day after the brutal murder of fourteen year old African American Emmett Till in  Mississippi. In the light of recent, and not so recent, events, particularly, but not exclusively, in the US; King's close of speech is as painfully relevant today as it was in 1963, although today I feel sure he would have added 'muslims, and all faiths'.

"“When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Much of today was spent working on my online Coursera/Yale course "The Science of Well Being" where the main topic was that kindness, giving, and gratitude bring greater personal happiness than the purchase of any material object can ever give - but I think I already knew that after a lifetime of teaching. Many Blip buddies already know it, too.

Today I am grateful for this gentle community, and the kindness of all my friends, virtual and real, in this otherwise cyclone of disaster and rage that seems to define 2020. 

I don't know what this pretty bush in the garden is called, but the colour is glorious.