Haiti, MLK and Shattered Dreams

Tonight I simultaneously sipped some  herbal tea  and Martin Luther King Jr. writings.  I came across an exquisite sermon he wrote in a Georgia jail entitled, “Shattered Dreams”.  As I took in the flavor of MLK’s sermon about ‘absorbing the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope’ (Strength to Love, King, p.95)  freshly painted pictures and video’s of Haiti’s crisis of the devastating 7.0 earthquake  plauged my mind that I had just viewed on the Al-Jezeera news website.

The dreams and hopes to trade a better future for a weary past in Haiti were smashed in a matter of seconds. Death. Agony. Destruction.

MLK Jr’s dreams of non-violence, freedom, equality and ‘transforming the dangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood’  (I Have a Dream) linger on unrealized in the midst of violence, wars and greed that plauge our nation.

MLK asks the question in his sermon, “what do we do with unsatisfied hopes?”

He preaches to us to honestly confront our shattered dreams. This is the first step toward redemption. Applying this ointment of MLK’s preaching to our wounds today; What if we honestly confront our  own smashed hopes of a better world and a better life? What if we honestly confront what has happened to our Haitian neighbors to the south?  What if we daringly stared at these shattered dreams and mustered enough faith to believe that God dwells with us and with those in life’s most confining and oppressive circumstances?

I don’t know what would happen. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m left thinking what else can we do but keep caravaning into the mystery of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazereth as the gateway to find hope in utter brokenness.