From our listserv on Sat, Jan 17, 2026:
Dear SMAD members,Tomorrow is the day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is often recognized for his "I Have a Dream" speech. I consider this unfortunate because he stood for so much more. We have two queries:
1. Name one other quality or action you admire about MLK. Elaborate on why you chose this.
2. Think of a dream that you would choose for our society. What would the realization of your dream look like?
What I'm thinking:
1. I admire MLK's scholarship, his commitment to a life of the mind.
2. My dream is for more civil polite even joyous sharing among subcultures who need to bury the hatchet between them, for example Freemasons and Catholics, Jews and Muslims, Friends and militants.
In practice, I follow MLK's scholarship into Mithraism and look for ways to intertwine my Quakerism with same.
Sacrificing the bull is maintaining control (self control) over the stubborn (bull-headed) Ego; mind-over-brain in Bucky's talk.
With Mithraism came a kind of egalitarianism among militants that negated and/or transcended rank, making us all equals in the eyes of God, and/or in having God within.
With Mithraism came a kind of egalitarianism among militants that negated and/or transcended rank, making us all equals in the eyes of God, and/or in having God within.
Imperial Rome may have found Mithraism less adequate as a tool of authoritarianism than Pauline Christianity, per suggestive lectures by predictive history expert Xueqin Jiang.
SMAD = Sunday Morning Adult Discussion, a program offered through Multnomah Friends Meeting.
