2007 BLOOD:WATER MISSION Project Update

Many of you can remember the season of 2007 in which we participated in a couple of community service projects, one of which was raising over $2,000 for BloodWater:Mission, an organization that works to dig drinking water wells in Africa. Their organization also works to provide AIDS relief across the continent.

Some exciting national news has come out of the organization, and by extension, our fundraising efforts as well.

Recently a documentary has been released called, SONS OF LWALA. "It tells the story of Vanderbilt University Medical School students Milton and Fred Ochieng’, two brothers from Kenya whose village sent them to America to become doctors. After losing both parents to AIDS, they are left with the heartbreaking task of returning home to finish the health clinic their father started before getting sick. Unable to raise enough money on their own, the brothers are joined by students, politicians and rock musicians who put on fundraising drives throughout the United States through Blood:Water Mission's support. SONS OF LWALA follows Milton and Fred on their incredible journey as they find a way, despite all odds, to open their village’s first hospital." - (bloodwatermission.org)

Here's the trailer to the film, and below it a link to the ABC News story


The brothers will be featured on ABC's World News with Charlie Gibson tonight, January 30 at 6:45PM (PST) as the program's "Persons of the Week."

Click here to read the ABC News story.

All State Honors

For the first time in King High's 10 year history, the cross country teams notched three All-State Selections in a single season. The most previously was in 2006 when Kelsi Tippets and Carissa Bowman earned the distinction.

Congratulations to Lane Werley, Devin Becerra and Kelsi Tippets for working their way to the top of their individual grade levels in the entire state of California!

Read what dyestatcal.com had to say about each:

Kelsi Tippets (ML King, Riverside-SS) - Kelsi had a couple of super efforts when it counted, with a fifth in the tough Section Division I Finals and top 25 finish at the State Meet.

Lane Werley (King HS, Riverside-SS) -- A convert from basketball the sensational youngster revealed great promise for the future with multiple quality races, including a fine 15:56 at the Clovis Invitational.

Devin Becerra (ML King, Riverside-SS) -- While teammate Lane Werley caught our eye early in 2008, Devin moved into the frame by late season too. His 16:44 run at the early-season Mt. Carmel Invitational showed promise, with a 16:32 run on the state meet course fulfilling those views.

We Have Only Our Bodies

Three days after Martin Luther King heard the call to carry on, the local KKK threw a bomb on the porch of King's home, exploding and ripping a hole in the front wall. Fortunately no one was injured in the blast, but the gauntlet had been thrown down.

Calling or not, the message was clear: You and your kind are not wanted.

A crowd of angry protesters assembled on the lawn that night, armed and dangerous, seeking retribution. Above the shouts and expletives, King's voice rose and called for calm. He asked the throng to put away their guns, love their enemies, turn the other cheek. "We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory voilence" he said as a cocktail of dynamite and vengence stirred the night air. "We must meet violence with non violence. Remember the words of Jesus: 'He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.'" Then, like throwing moral salt into the open wounds, he finished with "We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: 'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you ...' This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love."

His message was clear: Me and my kind will not be moved.

As a student of Gandhi, a nonviolent approach to segregation had been percolating in King's mind for some time, but the radical call to withhold the counter strike met one of its first real tests that ugly night. As the splinters and dust settled and by the time the crowd deflated and dispersed, a movement unlike any other was born. The foot soldiers would carry only their bodies into battle. Evil would be met with love. Fists with faces. Teeth with legs. Though history has shown that revolutions are fought with guns, and fire is fought with more fire, this one would be different ... and very difficult. It would be an "Anti-Revolution" and King was betting that despite the difficulties it would ultimately prevail.

When tested and tired, King returned to his home. While accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he recalled that reference point, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. "When the years have rolled past" King said, "and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live, men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization, because these humble children of God were willing to 'suffer for righteousness sake.'"

All of that sounds well and good until you get to the "suffering" part. Most of us don't like to suffer, most of all me. Why else do we have pills and air conditioning? Truth is, that part was a hard sell for King too. Though many signed on to suffer with him for righteousness, many gagged on it or balked. In a tense meeting with the double-crossing mayor of Chicago who reneged on a promise to let them march, King explained the weariness that comes in doing the hard thing:

"Let me say that if you are tired of demonstrations, I am tired of demonstrating. I am tired of the threat of death. I want to live, I don't want to be a martyr. ...I am tired of getting hit, tired of being beaten, tired of going to jail. " But then, pulling out his ultimate weapon, he said,"Now gentlemen, you know we don't have much. We don't have much money. We don't really have much education, and we don't have political power. We have only our bodies and you are asking us to give up the one thing that we have when you say, 'don't march.'"

Ouch. Moved, the mayor changed course and the bodies marched. Score one for the unarmed foot soldiers.

It is difficult (perhaps impossible) for those of us in 21st Century Southern California to really imagine the plight of African Americans who lived in the South in the middle of the last century. The violence perpetrated by racists is sick enough to leave unmentioned here. The KKK was given by local governments "free passes" to do as they pleased to demonstrators prior to the police moving in. The FBI, like so many holders of power then, was bent. Even President Kennedy, with his own secrets to hide, was made to realize it'd be in his best interests to stall a civil rights bill King had personally pleaded with him to enact. The Sixties were stained with the sins of pride and racism. To be in the trenches of that fight was to sign up for suffering. Some survived, some didn't.

But the movement King led did survive, and perhaps it's life was best summed up in a speech King gave on the steps of the State Capitol building in Montgomery, after one of the largest and most brutal marches recorded. 25,000 folks were tired, not just of the march, but of marching. Yet it was again the hope of victory, the assurance of victory that Martin Luther King offered them that lifted their spirits. He finished his thoughts this way:

"I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" ...Somebody’s asking, ... How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?"

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."
How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."
How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."
How long? Not long: Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long, because 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on.

Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on."

Had the crowd not already been on it's feet, it would have stood. Tired and sore marchers were reminded that the God of the moral universe marched with them. A banner of truth unfurled and flapped in the Southern breeze.

Carry on!

A Kitchen Table Calling

In her great, recent work titled Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin paints a glowing portrait of her subject, Abraham Lincoln. Lately the book has attracted a large national audience as President Elect Obama has been observed creating with inspiration his own "team of rivals" for his cabinet.

Lincoln is described in Team as a man of relentless ambition. In a letter written to the folks of Sangamon County during his first-ever campaign Lincoln wrote, "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. ...I can say for one that I have no other ambition so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed." Sadly the youthful Lincoln wondered if he had missed his moment, he "worried that 'the field of glory' had been harvested by the founding fathers, that nothing had been left for his generation but modest ambitions." Despite that dour outlook, his ambition to make something of himself carried him. Once, while in a severe depression that left Lincoln bedridden and others wondering if he should perish, he was able to muster on, for "I had done nothing to make any human being remember that I have lived."

Of course the history of the 1850's and '60's had different ideas for the politician. That old fear of Old Abe's was proven unfounded as that ambition would catapult him to the nation's highest office. In the midst of America's darkest hour, marked by Blue and Grey and Black, he would claim for his own the light of America's greatest achievement.

In August of 1963, Martin Luther King stood in the literal and figurative shadow of Lincoln's esteem to deliver his epic I have a Dream speech. With the soaring granite memorial to the Great Emancipator behind him, Dr. King's soaring eloquence spoke of a legacy and a dream, of a past and a future, of undeniable ideals left unfulfilled. Though the echoes of Lincoln reverberated in King's magisterial speech, the journey King took to reach that pinnacle could not have been more unlike Lincoln's. Where Lincoln was driven to great heights, King was called.

Martin Luther King Jr's desire had always been to simply preach just as his father and grandfather had done in Georgia. It was in his genes. While in his early twenties, the younger Martin moved to the North to attend seminary, met the beautiful Coretta, and was soon married. Only a dissertation short of graduation, an opportunity came to hold his own pulpit in Alabama and given the "stodgy wealth" of the Dexter Avenue Baptist congregation, he figured there would be a number of nice fringe benefits to go along with the gig. He took the job and quickly settled into writing sermons and church budgets.

Of course the history of the 1950's and '60's had different ideas for the preacher. That comfortable, promising career of young Martin vanished in the midst of another dark hour marked by tear gas, gunfire and German Shepherds. But it was through that fiery trial that Martin Luther King Jr. would be catapulted to heights of his own, and in so doing he ushered in the light of America's new morning. The daybreak of equality was cracking through the darkness of history.

All sunrises begin in the dark of night and it was no different for King. While leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956 -- a responsibility he accepted reluctantly -- the weight of death threats and the fear of what could happen to his infant daughter and wife shoved King to the cliff of capitulation. It was still early in the movement, but he frankly had enough and the comforts of preaching to a well-clad and receptive audience each Sunday at Dexter Ave. was alluring. Unable to sleep, he arose, poured some coffee, and sat at his kitchen table running through a mental Rolodex of options. King described what happened that night:

"And I sat at that table thinking about that little girl and thinking about the fact that she could be taken away from me any minute. And I started thinking about a dedicated, devoted and loyal wife, who was over there asleep. … And I got to the point that I couldn't take it anymore. I was weak. … And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I never will forget it. … I prayed a prayer, and I prayed out loud that night. I said, "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage." … And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world." … I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."

King's rise to greatness would not be a Lincolnian quest to live a life worthy of history's esteem. Rather, as darkness swirled about him, it would be a still small voice that jarred him into accepting his new reality. In the coming years, as despair would creep in, it would be that call of God that compelled him to deny himself and take up the cross of someone larger than himself. It would be an anchor through the storms of the civil rights movement that not only held him firm, but changed the nation as well.

Today, if you visit the Rosa Parks Institute in Montgomery, there is a sizable display in the museum to the "kitchen table" moment in Martin Luther King's life. Gazing upon it, one is confronted with how simple and serene it looks. It is not a grand stage or platform from which momentous events are launched. Absent are the trappings of power, prestige or office. It is a humble place. It is quiet.

But from the solitude of that little room came big things. Over a cooling cup of coffee, at a little kitchen table, a theological template for political action had been born. The voice of redemption was heard. America owes a debt of gratitude to the Call young Martin heard that night and to the courage he showed to follow it's voice.

Mileage Kings and Queens

We've been preaching for a decade now how success in distance running is almost always connected to the amount of miles one trains. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, the axiom "more is better" is more often than not, true.

So to that end we started asking our runners to record their miles all year. The calendar clicks on, their running should as well. The reward, other than tremendous improvement in the sport, would be a patch for their letter-jackets should they reach pleateaus arbitrarly set at round numbers above 700.

This season's "long milers" are:
Brandon Rogers: 1000
Devin Becerra: 900
Charlie Alvarez: 900
Jared Nocella: 900
Rebecca Asplund: 800
Derek Nelson: 800
Carrie Soholt: 700

And in a strange coincidental way, this is this blog's 100th post! (Ok, it isn't that strange)