Singing Freedom on MLK’s Bridge

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day; for most the first chance to fire up the grill after December snows. For others, a chance to stand up to current injustices and pronounce a new Kingdom economy in the United States of America.

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In Abilene, there is a large bridge that crosses HWY 80 over a large, undeveloped, wooded lot. Nearby there is an abandoned energy plant with busted windows, teetering smoke stacks, and weed-smothered fences. I know that about 350 homeless frequent this “Hobo Jungle” as the locals call it. Many of its inhabitants are children. A little village of the mentally ill, socially discarded, and abused live right underneath and around one of the busiest bridges in the city.

This bridge has two names:
1. The Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge
2. The “Singing Bridge”

Why the “Singing Bridge”? It got this nickname because of the rivets in the street to help drain the rainwater off the bridge. These rivets, as tires drive over them, create a “hum” that sounds eerily like a choir of human voices singing.

What in all of this might God be saying to his people in Abilene? What obvious (or unfortunately, not so obvious) connection might there be in these circumstances?

MLK was a saint – “an incarnated capsule of the Kingdom” that I talk about in this post – I imagine his cries for freedom and justice and equality in this land, and I mourn. I see such devastating prejudice, such insurmountable inequality, and I wonder if MLK failed completely. I wonder if anyone can see or is willing to do anything about the irony of the situation on HWY 80′s “Singing Bridge”.

On Martin Luther King Day, how will we spend it? I know that every year there is a small parade that march across the MLK bridge. Maybe I’ll go this year. Only maybe I won’t just walk over the top of the bridge, but head down underneath it – and meet someone new…maybe Martin Luther King himself.

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