We decided as a group what do to celebrate Dr. King’s Birthday.  It was really a collaborative decision, and not any one person’s idea.  We started with an idea that it would be good to respond to Dr, King’s work by giving things to “poor people” or “homeless people”. Then someone remembered a recent time when they tried this and were rebuffed. We thought about how it would feel to have someone single you out because you appeared to be “poor.”  It didn’t seem like it would feel comfortable at all. But not sharing at all felt selfish. Through considering a series of suggestions and scenarios, we decided that it would be ok to give things out if:  We offered them to everyone that we saw, without starting with a value judgement about that person.  And, if we offered, leaving them an opening to choose to take something or not.  At first, we thought about fresh flowers, because they are beautiful, and symbols of growth and change.  But it is REALLY cold sometimes in Richmond in January, and none of us had something in our gardens to pick, so we decided to go with tissue paper flowers. They are pretty, and we have the skills to make them. To each flower, we attached on of Dr. King’s thoughts.

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