Close to Greatness

If you are like me, on the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday you not only think of the spirit and dedication of Dr. King, but you think of his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” at the March on Washington.

I recently read where Dr. King worked long and hard on that speech, having several important messages to deliver.  (As someone who has written speeches for others for key events, I can appreciate the difficulty of structuring just the right words to appropriately affect the intended audience.) Apparently Dr. King had used elements of the I Have a Dream theme from time to time in other speeches and wanted to use it in the Washington speech, but for some reason could not make it work with all he wanted to say. So he read his carefully prepared remarks. 

His remarks were thoughtful and important, but near the end of his prepared remarks Mahalia Jackson, who had earlier sung two songs at the event and was on/near the stage, shouted out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”  With that, Dr. King quit reading his written remarks and spoke, without notes but from the heart, with what we all know - - even five decades later - - as the powerful I Have a Dream speech.

If you want to hear Dr, King’s famous I Have A Dream speech, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDWWy4CMhE

Imagine that: Dr. King almost did not deliver what we have come to remember and be inspired by for so many years.   And that got me thinking about how often in our lives we fall short of greatness because we didn’t take a certain path, because we didn’t take some action, because we didn’t take a chance, even if we thought it was the right thing to do.   I know I fall short of things many times. But maybe, just maybe, we should take a chance from time to time, speak from the heart, and say what we really think…just like Dr. King did. 

Perhaps greatness awaits us all.