* THE EULOGY - A LIVING LEGACY! *
In 1968, Senator Bobby Kennedy,
While Campaigning for the Office of
President of The United States,
was Killed by an Assassin's Bullet -
Just as His Brother, President John F. Kennedy,
had been Killed 5-Years Before.
These are the Words of their Surviving Brother,
Ted Kennedy, as he Delivered The Eulogy
at Bobby Kennedy's Funeral.
What he leaves to us
is what he said, what he did, and what he stood for.
A speech he made sums it up the best,
and I would like to read it now.
"There is discrimination in this world,
& slavery, & slaughter, & starvation.
Governments repress their people.
Millions are trapped in poverty,
while the nation grows rich,
and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.
These are differing evils,
but they are the common works of man.
They reflect the imperfection of human justice,
the inadequacy of human compassion,
our lack of sensibility
toward the suffering of our fellows.
But we can perhaps remember,
even if only for a time, that those who live with us
are our brothers, that they seek as we do,
nothing but the chance to live out our lives
in purpose & happiness,
winning what satisfaction & fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith,
this bond of common goals,
can begin to teach us something.
Surely we can learn at least,
to look at those around us as fellow men.
And surely we can begin to work a little harder
to bind up the wounds among us, and to become,
in our own hearts, brothers & countrymen once again.
The answer is to rely on youth,
not a time of life, but a state of mind,
a temper of the will, a quality of imagination,
a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure, over the love of ease.
The cruelties & obstacles
of this swiftly changing planet,
will not yield to the obsolete dogmas & outworn slogans;
they cannot be moved by those
who cling to a present that is already dying,
who prefer the illusion of security,
to the excitement & danger
that come with even the most peaceful progress.
It is a revolutionary world which we live in,
& this generation at home & around the world,
has had thrust upon it, a greater burden
of responsibility than any generation
that has ever lived.
Some believe there is nothing one man,
or one woman, can do against the enormous array
of the world's ills.
Yet many of the world's great movements of thought
& action have flowed from the work of a single man.
A young monk began the Protestant Reformation.
A young general extended an empire
from Macedonia to the borders of the earth.
A young woman reclaimed the territory of France,
& it was a young Italian explorer
who discovered the new world,
& the 32-year old Thomas Jefferson,
who explained that "All Men Are, Created Equal."
These people moved the world, and so can we all.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself,
but each of us can work to change
a small portion of events,
and in the total of all those acts, will be written,
the history of this generation.
Each time someone stands for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others,
or strikes out against an injustice,
s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
And crossing each other,
from a million different centers of energy & daring,
those ripples build a current
that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of oppression & resistance.
Few are willing to brave the disapproval
of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues,
the wrath of their society.
Moral courage is a rarer commodity
than bravery in battle, or great intelligence.
Yet, it is the one essential, vital quality,
for those who seek to change the world,
that yields most painfully to change.
And I believe that in this generation,
those with the courage to enter this moral conflict,
will find themselves with companions
in every corner of the globe.
For the fortunate among us,
there is the temptation to follow
the easy & familiar paths of personal ambition
& financial success, so grandly spread before those
who enjoy the privilege of education.
But that is not the road history
has marked out for us.
Like it or not,
we live in times of danger & uncertainty.
But they are also more open
to the creative energy of man
than at any other time in history.
All of us will ultimately be judged,
& as the years pass, we will surely judge ourselves,
on the effort we have contributed to building
a new world society, & the extent to which
our ideals & goals have shaped that event.
Our future may lie beyond our vision,
but it is not completely beyond our control.
It is the shaping impulse of America that,
neither faith, nor nature,
nor the irresistable tides of history,
but the works of our own hands,
matched to reason & principle,
will determine our destiny."
There is pride in that, even arrogance,
My brother need not be idealized
Those of us who loved him,
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation,
but there is also experience & truth,
& in any event, it is the only way we can live.
That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves us.
or enlarged in death, beyond what he was in life.
He should be remembered simply,
as a good & decent man,
who saw wrong & tried to right it,
saw suffering & tried to heal it,
saw war & tried to stop it.
& who take him to his rest today,
pray that what he was to us,
& what he wished for others,
will someday come to pass for all the world.
to those he touched, & who sought to touch him:
"SOME MEN SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE,
AND SAY WHY.
I DREAM THINGS THAT NEVER WERE,
AND SAY, WHY NOT."
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* THE CREATIVE WORLD OF COLEMAN WHEELER! *
Email: adventur@midwest.net