on revolutionary acts

This weekend, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, I found myself tweeting all the quotes I could find of his that were under 140-characters long (you'd be surprised how many there are). Some of my favourites:

"Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness."

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

I was thinking about how amazing King was -- to stand so strong for what he believes in. To doggedly work toward peace and love and justice, in the face of possible injury and violence and even death to himself or to his family. I wondered if I would ever be strong enough to do the same thing. I'd like to think I would be, but I don't know -- if someone threatened Marcus or Alex, the truth is, I might just fall silent.

But then I kept thinking.

I thought that when it comes to peace and love and justice, often the smallest kindness, the smallest show of connection, of compassion, particularly when it is extended to someone who is very different from us -- in physical appearance or in ideology, whatever -- that small act can be nothing short of revolutionary. That living our beliefs -- making a conscious effort to act with good intention -- necessarily affects the people who know us. The children who watch us.

At one point over the weekend, I said : "I do not say this lightly: you have the power to change the world."

I really believe this to be true.

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Also this weekend, the following video just happened to come across my feed reader, published by TED. It's really interesting, but it requires a bit of attention. So whenever you have about 11 minutes to focus, come back and watch it -- it's related to the above. I'd love to hear what you think.