by Maxi

Love is what makes the world go ’round. I used to believe that when I was young and naïve; didn’t you? Maybe I’m wrong and you still believe it.

Only I grew up in the fifties … in Miami. The signs were everywhere: whites only, colored not allowed, huge signs on public buses: colored seat to the rear.

I used to sit in the back with my friend Rose. We would ask the bus driver what that sign meant, he never answered. To this day I don’t understand.

I was in my teens when Martin Luther showed up. Being young and caught up in my own world I didn’t pay much attention, except for one thing — his voice. It touched me, and over time so did his message.

When he died a blanket of sadness spread across the entire nation. The violence that followed would have brought Martin Luther to tears; it was the very thing that he rejected.

Love and peace was his mission; equality for all mankind. Even for people like me. I was a single mother with a child to support. I worked hard, did the exact same job as the man next to me, yet he was paid more.

The answer to the problem of war, personal or global, is love. We have heard this for years. It’s true. The problem is it won’t work. Love is never enough—it never will be. In order for love to be the answer everyone has to believe; must be willing to live by that principle. This will never happen. There will always be those who with a different ideology; some have been indoctrinated since childhood that if you don’t believe as they do it is their responsibility to kill you … and they will.

All We Need is Love; Give Peace a Chance; I Have a Dream … the list goes on.

Still we must never give up, cannot allow those who made the ultimate sacrifice, like Martin Luther King, Jr., to have died in vain. If their sacrifice is to have meaning than we must “raise them up” by carrying  their message forward in a positive way.

May Your Glass Always Be Half Full

Read a chapter at: maximalone.com