Recently, I had the opportunity to spend some time in San Diego. I highly recommend everyone take a trip to San Diego. The weather was wonderful. It is a very walkable city. It is also a heartbreaking city with so many homeless sleeping on the sidewalks and asking for money. While I was there a tour I took and a friend I met up with both recommended that I stroll down the Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade. After taking this walk, I recommend this to anyone who visits San Diego.
Along the sides of the paved walkway are quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life’s blueprint. Number one…should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth, and your own somebodiness…always feel that you count. always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.”
“As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich…As long as diseases are rampant…I can never be totally healthy…I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.”
“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgement. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
And my favorite part (a huge thank you to my friends for sharing the secrets of this place with me) is the labyrinth. Although the city calls it a hedge maze, there is only one way to enter and one way to exit which means I’ll be calling it a labyrinth. If you look closely as you walk through the labyrinth, you’ll see suggestions for changes you might make in your life. You’ll be asked to shed the cloak of things that are hurting yourself and other, and you’ll be asked to don the cloak of behaviors and attitudes that remind us to love each other. I will include these words at the end of the post as a closing prayer or benediction. As you reach the sculpture in the center, you’ll see beautiful shininess inside of the sculpture placed there. Be sure to spend a few minutes looks for the words hidden on the sculpture. And then you can go back the way you came in. Hopefully, you’ll remember to shed what needs to be shed and don what needs to be donned.
Shedding the cloak of oppression and Donning the cloak of recognition.
Shedding the cloak of fear and Donning the cloak of trust.
Shedding the cloak of prejudice and Donning the cloak of respect.
Shedding the cloak of malice and Donning the cloak of compassion.
Shedding the cloak of bitterness and Donning the cloak of forgiveness.
Shedding the cloak of despair and Donning the cloak of hope.
Shedding the cloak of weariness and Donning the cloak of courage.
Shedding the cloak of ignorance and Donning the cloak of wisdom.
Shedding the cloak of darkness and Donning the cloak of light.