time and justice

I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

-MLKjr, Letter from Birmingham Jail

MLKjr Day

My best attempt at observing the holiday so far was to donate to Democrats running for Senate seats that might be flippable. I am looking at a man walking very carefully across Carol's roof. Didn't she get a new roof a few years ago? I could be misremembering. 

I will probably be sinking more money into my own house relatively soon. Ariel is bringing a structural engineer on Wednesday morning to assess the sorry state of my garage and entryway. I'm bracing myself for bad news. Everything is rotting or crumbling. I feel anxious every time it rains. 

Yesterday SN, NB, and I hiked up and down Mt. Diablo. We had wonderful views of the tule fog. It was chilly in a way that helped us make it up to the summit. I did a little bit of stretching last night but I can feel my haunches tightening up. 

Ann treated me to the Warriors game on Saturday -- we were up in the nosebleed seats. It was very loud but it was also surprisingly fun. Partly because the Warriors actually won. And partly because the game started at 5:30, so I didn't have to stay out late. (Geezer!) 

The T took us there and home -- though there was some kind of signal/switch glitch that had us sitting between the 23rd St and Marin stops for several minutes, and we could not hear the driver's explanation (too much crackling and buzzing -- and this was a new train!). My guess is that the driver was planning to sit until he got permission to move from someone higher up the food chain. But Jackie, a neighbor whom I know by sight, was not willing to wait -- she was trying to get home from work with a large bag of dog food, and she'd been kicked off a southbound train so that it could turn around and take the Warriors fans who were pouring out the arena toward the Embarcadero. She got on the intercom and calmly told the driver he had taken us all hostage. I'm not sure if she convinced him or he heard from a higher-up, but we started moving, and we were grateful to Jackie.