Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

While in Washington DC a few days ago, I visited the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. It's a new memorial, just south of National Mall, in a direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.

First I spent some time at the Lincoln National Memorial. So impressive and solemn, but also linked with the legacy of Dr. King. I contemplated that famous day in 1963, the bravery, compassion and eloquence demonstrated on those very steps. How ludicrous it would have seemed to all of them that someday the country would build a memorial to Dr. King on this hallowed ground. More believable, I'm sure, would have been the tragic news that first they would kill him.

With an almost heavy heart I took the short walk, less than half a mile, southeast of the Lincoln Memorial. As I approached the memorial, the first thing I saw was an immense, granite boulder with a channel cut straight through the center, and the Jefferson Memorial just visible on the other shore of the Potomac Tidal Basin.

As I got closer, I could see the "missing" center of the granite was pushed several yards ahead.

I walked through the unnatural valley and approached the center stone, where King's granite body gazes out over the water.

He's holding something, maybe a draft of a new speech. If I'm wondering what he's thinking about so seriously, if I'm wondering what he would share with me today, I need only look around me. Some of his most memorable thoughts are carved on the 450-foot curved wall that extends from either side of the granite boulder behind him. The themes of equality, compassion, peace and justice are so consistent that I have no doubt it's what he would still say to me. Though I wish he were still with us, still leading the way, I take direction from one of my favorites of his quotes:

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

The final word in reality, not just in the ethereal future that may great us after death, but in reality. A reality that he understood would end for him with evil triumphant. May this memorial be a continuation of the message of the power of unconditional love, a stone that outlives evil's temporary triumphs...