Monday Morning Musings

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Some people don't think any more of the day other than the fact that it is a holiday and a day off work. Other people are irritated that there is yet another holiday to inconvenience them by closing banks, the postal service, and other government offices. Thank goodness, there are many more who recognize the importance of what he did and the need to celebrate and honor that.

And thank goodness that we teach our children and grandchildren the legacy that King left us. Here in my small town there is an annual celebration that draws close to two hundred people, which is good since the population is just over 3,000. The majority of those people are African-American, but more and more people of other colors and cultures show up each year. There are, of course, the obligatory speeches by city and church leaders, but there is also a wide variety of entertainment, singing and dancing and dramatic readings of some of King's most memorable speeches. It is always a good reminder of what Dr. King stood for.

I was proud to be active in the Civil Rights Movement, and we have made strides in acceptance and equality since the early 60s, yet prejudice and bigotry still impact our society way too much. Dr. King's mission will not be complete until that no longer happens.

Dr. King left quite a list of inspirational quotes, and this is one of my favorites, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Wonderful words, but only wonderful if we take them to heart and act on them.

On the opposite side of the "love/peace" coin is the increasing danger students face when they go to school. According to a report in The Beast by Brandy Zadrozny, there have been 24 school shootings since the Newtown tragedy two years ago, the most recent in Philadelphia. While this latest one appears not to be the same as incidents of anger-motivated mass shootings, it still causes great concern. In a more recent article in The Guardian Liberty Voice,  giving more details about the shooting at Delaware Valley Charter High School  Michele Wessel questions how a young man was able to get a weapon into the school that was equipped with metal detectors. 

Good question, but perhaps a better one - how did the kid manage to leave home with a gun?

On another note, as we look ahead to February and Valentine's Day, Untreed Reads is having a special sale on romance novels - 30% off - from now through February 14th. I'm happy that my romance, Play it Again, Sam will be included in that sale along with other romance titles published by Uncial Press. They publish everything from sweet romance to hot, hot, hot, so there is something for everyone's taste in a love story. Visit the Untreed Reads Store to see all the titles in the sale.

A Lesson From Cats

When I saw these two cats sharing the same space the other day, the sight stopped me for a moment. These two female cats have hated each other ever since Daisy, the silver tabby, came to live at our house. Prior to that, Misty, the calico, was the queen. She was top cat and ruled the other cats with an iron paw.

Daisy is the cat that I found injured in my barn last fall. At the time, we did not plan to have one more cat. We had just adopted the two black kittens I've written about before, but my husband and I decided that we would not leave Daisy to be dinner for a coyote. Misty had accepted the kittens with only minor upset. Maybe because she had had several litters of kittens, and a maternal instinct kicked in, but she did not like Daisy from day one.

Ever since, the two cats have had a hate-relationship. If they get within a few feet of each other, great bouts of hissing usually erupt. Still, there have been moments that hinted that maybe the hostilities would not last forever. Over time, the cats made tentative approaches toward peace, occasionally walking past each other without the sound effects, and once even looking at each other as if thinking, "Maybe she could be okay."

Then once I saw them outside, and they were actually playing a little game of chase. At least it looked like a game of chase. Unless it was just Misty saying, "get out of the flowerbed. I was here first." But I'd like to think that they had decided they could have a little fun together if they stopped being so nasty to each other.

Anyway, whatever differences they have had were obviously put aside the day they decided to sleep back-to-back on the card table where I work jigsaw puzzles. When I got the camera, of course the perfect picture was no longer there. Daisy, always on alert, heard me turn on the camera and sat up. Misty was so sound asleep, she didn't even move.

I snapped a couple of shots anyway and stood there for a few moments just watching. Seeing the cats together like that in relative peace made me wish that people could resolve their differences, or at least put them aside long enough to discover that we can get along.

What if the groups of people who have battled each other for decades, maybe centuries, just stopped and tried to walk within a few miles of each other without violence erupting? What if people who harbor ill-will toward people of a different race or culture or religion, stopped and just looked at each other and thought, "Maybe she could be okay."?

What if some cultures that arm young children to go fight the "enemy" would give them bats and balls and tell them to go play with the other kids in the park?

What if we all just learned to get along?