As Carol and I celebrate this unique Holiday on our Campus at Wesley-Palms I think of you in Colorado, Alaska and California. We are amazingly blessed as citizens of the No One nation on Earth.

I have been asked:: “Who is the greatest Person you ever met? In my 88 years on this Planet the answer for me is ‘Martin Luther King, Jr.’ None of you heard him but he preached in our First Baptist Church of Denver. When Carol and I were pastoring there.

I had a week with him , chauffeuring him to various speaking assignments. The Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta Georgia had recently affiliated with our American Baptist Convention. That was his home Church. He was grateful that the Mission Society was then chairing in NYC, had borrowed $10,000,000 after the Civil War to start Negro Colleges. One of which was Morehouse College where Dr. Benjamin Mays was President Dr. Mays guided him into the Gospel Ministry rather than the Law profession.

Dr. A.B..Franklin., with whom I served on the National Council of Churches. And President of our Crozier Seminary, said to me one day "Crozier justifies its existence as long as it produces men like Clarence Cranford of Washington, DC and Martin Luther King, Jr."

I’m thankful to have known and worked with both of them. Martin, particularly was one whom God used in immeasurably ways in making a better country and world. HE PULLED RACISM OUT IN THE OPEN and shared it's cancerous and odorous forms before the world. This embarrassed our nation. The nonviolent philosophy learned from our Savior and Gandhi worked miracles of change.

In one of his closing sermons he said:

"If I died tomorrow I would like for people to say I tried to clothe the naked and visit those who were in prison. I tried to be right on the war question. I tried to love everyone. If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major For justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for justice, and for righteousness. All of the other shallow things will not matter. I wont have any money to leave behind. I wont have luxurious things to leave behind. I want to leave behind a committed life:

“If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or a song, if I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong, then, my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, if I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, if I can spread the message as the Master taught, then my living will not be in vain."

...I rejoice in the memory and example of this great man. Thanks for scrolling and I hope you will squeeze every day making meaningful and fulfilling relationships.