A Drum Major for What is Right, Ring Out Justice

Be a drum major.

Drum out justice, doing what is right, ring out together, free at last, thank God, we're free at last!

And, let freedom ring along with being a drum major for justice.  For right's sake. For violent-free living.

Mark's Gospel f the Good Book, chapter 10:35-45, regarding the ambition of James and John, the beloved of Jesus, was on the heart and mind of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Death was nearing for him.

The civil rights leader was writing his last sermon on service, "The Drum Major Instinct."

King eulogized about what he'd like said at his funeral in 1968 at 39 years of age.

"Tell them not to talk too long...I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others...tried to love somebody...tried to be right on the war question...tried to feed the hungry...that I tried to love and serve humanity."

Yes, sir!

A drum major for peace.

Be it!

Better we do as he did, work as he tried, struggle to stand up when others sit or simply speak or sing or say little for life.  Simply serve.

Ring out service. 

Stand up.

Serve.

Sit little.  Talk less.  Act always.

Use words only when necessary.

And, let your being and body, limbs and life serve peace.

Six adults and 20 small children in Newtown, CT., were belted with bullets bought by a woman who was preparing to defend herself in battle. 

Yet, looking outside herself for the enemy, pointed to the enemy and conflict within her own soul.

Violence is like that. It brews inside us.  It stews.  And, it boils over in anger, in guns, in death of little ones, innocent ones, loved ones.

That's why peace is the way for you and me.

All of us.

Unless I have a gun, I can't kill.  Everyone knows that, including the NRA with their clever slogans to keep buying arsenals of guns.

Defending myself, ourselves on the outside with weapons of mass destruction, suggests what's going on in the inside, no?

Building an arsenal to protect myself from others shows troubled selves like that conflicted mother whose own son seemed to need to defend himself while wounded and hurt inside.

Obsessed with guns herself, and "her preoccupation with being armed and its role in her own demise may be a metaphor for the entire country," notes Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister.

God help us.

Be a drum major for peace Monday and the next day.

Serve.

Lift up this nation, and, heal its woundedness for King's sake.