DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S STREET SWEEPER SPEECH

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S STREET SWEEPER SPEECH

   Our visiting Pastor invoked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech this week with words of encouragement regarding our God given gifts.  Dr. King delivered this speech to junior high school students in October, 1967 but it is so relevant today, no matter how old you are.  He began with a question:  "What is your life's blueprint?"

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

   "When ever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as a guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint. 

  

   Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

   I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint:  Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own "somebodiness".  Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody, worthless.  Always feel that you count because you do:  God created you, loves you, and has a plan for your life.  Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

   Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor.  You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life--what your life's work will be.  Set out to do it well.  And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers--and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1971, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."  That hasn't always been true--but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school.  I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in--stay in school.

   And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it.  Don't just set out to do a good job.  Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better  (self motivation, ambition).

   If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera.  Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.  Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.  

   

   If you can't be a pine tree at the top of the hill due to lack of skills, education, or gifts, be a shrub in the valley.  Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.  Be a bush if you can't be a tree.  If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.  If you can't be a sun, be a star.  For it isn't by size that you win or fail.  Be the best of whatever you are."

Italics inserted were my words

You are welcome to leave a comment with your thoughts.

You are also invited to visit Oma at http://omaslife.blogspot.com  and http://omaspolitics.blogspot.com.