for MLK day

Words from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address worth remembering.

"bamboo 2" by tamsen ellen

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here...It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the poeple, shall not perish from the earth.

He's right, no one would have noticed the deaths at Gettysburg had it not been for his words that transformed a place and time into a "monumental" idea. "Ideas are more than battles" ~ Charles Sumner