"As the Past Slips into Mist" (Feb. 2012)

Reflections on the dreams of Martin Luther King, and connections with our past.

Behind my house is a historic and still active African-American Baptist church. I've noticed two times when the church is busy - Sunday mornings and funerals. When I sit on my porch, I often wave to the folks driving up our dirt lane to go there. And I rarely see anyone younger than my parents in the cars passing slowly by.

On the recent Martin Luther King Day holiday, I happened to look out my kitchen window and notice a well-dressed group of people standing in the cemetery, bidding farewell to another of their community. And I realized that I am witness to the passing of a generation right in my back yard.

Most of the people who worship at that church are old enough were born into the injustices of "separate but equal". They were likely young adults when Dr. King challenged us to change our laws and our hearts. Some of them have lived long enough to see an African-American in the highest office in the land. And likely none of them will live long enough to see another.

It is both a curse and a privilege of aging that one bears witness to the passing of generations. In these decades that I have lived, we have seen the last of those born into slavery, those who were born before the Industrial Revolution changed the land forever, and now those who fought in World War I. The last of the generation who heard tales of the Civil War directly from those who lived it in are slipping from us now. If I am lucky enough to draw my full measure from the cup of life, I will also see the passing of the last veterans of World War II and Korea.

These watershed events in our collective history are the prominent marks on the yardstick by which we measure ourselves. I imagine that this a human trait, not exclusively an American or even a modern one. And no doubt citizens of those civilizations of epochs past like the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Romans and Inca never could have really imagined a future without themselves in it.

In a way, they do live on, twists of their DNA doubtless finding their way into most of our lives on every continent. But their stories are left for us to interpret through the lens of our own time and experience. So if the fall of civilizations seems inevitable, why then so much effort to defy entropy and the laws of nature?

Of course - it is the possibility, dare I say "hope", of a different outcome, despite the probability. There is a chance, after all. And truthfully, we operate under the assumption that our cultural demise is far in the future. We live our lives, love and lose, have our arguments, and ponder the mysteries of the universe, content in that hypothesis. We surely do worry about our children and grandchildren, just as did our ancestors in those ancient civilizations. But it is likely that our Founding Fathers thought more about the fall of empires than we do.

What is certain is the well-worn adage that "time stops for no one". It is constant, consistent and relentless. And as I finish these words on this misty winter morn, I am waving out my window as the cars go slowly by to bid another final farewell. Another connection with our separate but shared past, slipping slowly away. Someday there will be none left who remember "separate but equal".