Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I have often been amazed at his view of justice. I particularly like his quote of, " injustice anywhere is a threat to justice Everywhere- letter in Burmingham Jail in April 1963." I acknowledge the selflessness with which King pursued the injustice of his day. Injustice of race, economy and social. These were real and so serious that they were indeed issues of life and death. This may not necessarily be the case for me, given my background and context. However, issues of justice are global although contextual and personal. Let me take this to another level, almost negligible, in comparison with King's struggles. As a foreign student I often find myself not doing justice in the roles I am involved in. For instance, doing 'distance mothering' of my children in another continent, tends to create much tension between my beliefs about mothering and the practice of the same. The situation is made harder by my other roles of being spouse and student. I say this from the perspective of needing to balance and not seeing these roles as problem. They are wonderful opportunities of relationality, that is why I feel frustrated that, given my many roles, I tend not to do them much justice. In this case, you might empathize with my perpetual chase of the possible balance of all of them, an elusive task by any standard. Now, you might be saying to yourself,'well, you cannot do everything." And I say, yes, that's true, but taking responsibility in those roles is part and parcel of my being and vocation. Responsibility as part of human identity is what, I believe, we need to be reminded of as we relate to one another in the various roles we involved in. And Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us of this again.