There is always something you can do. To that law, I would add the following corollary: But don’t expect your action to yield exactly the results you wanted, or to happen right away.

After one of our meetings, I heard Jackson Browne’s The Pretender on the radio. I have alway loved that song and it took a special meaning for me that day. I wondered: If Dr. King were alive today, which achievements would he celebrate? Which dreams that never came to pass would he mourn? Where would his hope lie?

Would even Dr. Martin Luther King be a pretender?

Here are a few key passages that prompted me.

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on.”
“Where do we go from here?”
Dr. Martin Luther King
Address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Atlanta, Georgia
16 August 1967

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I’ve been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You’ll get up and do it again
Amen
“The Pretender”
Jackson Browne