Last week, Catie, who is five, came running in from school saying: “Mommy! Do you know what? It was NOT Martin Luthe King Jr. who got the slaves free! It was a GIRL! It was Harriet Tubman!”

Ah….my little feminist.

I caught Catie up on the difference between the underground railroad in the late 1800’s and the civil rights movement of the mid 1900’s. She’s only in kindergarten — time is sort of relative. But I think she get’s it now.

The next day Eden came home and narrarated the life of Dr. King to me. She didn’t stop talking the whole time we walked from our house to the library (10 blocks) and back.

Apparently it’s time for MLK lessons at the local public school.

Paul and I love Dr. King. There’s very few people in our world, in our memory, who are quite as inspiring. We have lots of books about Dr. King, and Ruby Bridges, and Rosa Parks, and yes, Harriet Tubman. But nobody quite moves you, nobody quite inspires like Dr. King. He got kingdom. He got it all the way down to his bones.

This weekend Paul and the girls spent some time with the American Reader (a new favorite of Eden’s — even though she reminds us often that she’s actually CANADIAN.) They read Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speach and they watched an impersonator re-enact the speach on television. Eden was disappointed with the impersonator, so Paul found some of Dr. King’s oration on the intnet. Here’s Paul’s favorite quote from the “I Have Been to the Mountain Top” speech (listen here), which Dr. King gave the night before he died — one final gift for all us mortals still trying to get a glimpse of the kingdom, still trying to help the kingdom come.

It’s all right to talk about “long white robes over yonder,” in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It’s all right to talk about “streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preachers must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

Amen.