Writings: Put down the notes….he didn’t say, “I have a speech,” he said, “I have a dream!”

Lots of folks have lots of different angles about this week’s 50th anniversary celebration of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, but one of the perspectives is provided as a reminder that sometimes we need to

* get off script
• challenge our inner wiring, and
• say what’s in our heart & mind, before we talk ourselves (or think ourselves) out of it.

Sojourners’ Jim Wallis was fourteen in 1963, but he heard this story:

I have been personally moved by the reminders of that providential moment in the final speech at the March, when King’s favorite Gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, told the preacher from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, “Martin, tell them about the dream!”

King set aside his prepared remarks and did just that, reminding us all to put down our prepared notes and cautious plans and speak from the depths of our own souls and the soul of our faith to the soul of our nations.