The American Dream

"Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream."

— a nursery rhyme

Do you have a dream in your heart? Do you dream of something more real, lasting, true, and good? Do you have hope in your heart? That is a good thing. It is possible to have a noble, spiritually uplifting dream. Actually, that is the only True "dream," reflecting the hope for spiritual liberation from all that oppresses us in this world. It is the hope to come closer to the Truth, and be free. These are excerpts from a speech delivered in 1963 at the foot of the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C., by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

This was in some respects a true dream, and in other respects, an illusion. Unfortunately, the day will not come in this world when all people live free, spiritually or otherwise. God's Kingdom is not this world, and it can not be found in this world. We live in a world of unremitting wrong, injustice, oppression, and exploitation. And it suits the powers-that-be for it to remain that way. That is why, today, we in reality have greater segregation in our schools than we did when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave that speech. The dream of being free — the True dream in which all of the Good will be reunited in a Divine realm of justice, truth, love, and light — will surely come to pass. But not in this world. That makes it all the more important to hold onto that spiritual dream, even while in this world, even while faced with a life that crushes the spirit, or tries to destroy our Highest hopes. read more ...

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