I'm enjoying a day off from work because today is a holiday celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday. I'm forever amazed that the multi-national publishing empire that I work for grants us this "could go either way" holiday. This is particularly surprising considering they are notoriously tight with the number of holidays they grant employees in general. I think this particular holiday was grandfathered in when our parent company merged us with a technology division. No matter, it's just lovely to have a Monday free so early in this new year.

As I lolled in bed early this morning, toying with the time I should actually get my fat ass up, I listened to the tributes to Dr. King's legacy on NPR. During one of the segues between interviews and recordings of Dr. Kings' speeches, one commentator offered the following advice on how this day should be spent--she said, "Don't treat this as a day off to sleep in and lay around. Get up and give back to your community. Volunteer. Help out. Get involved." Noble and, well, appropriate advice. While I didn't actually do just that today due to previously scheduled plans, the sentiments stayed with me all day.

It's curious that we don't involve ourselves more to ensure the cohesiveness of the social fabric. In my 20s, I did a lot of volunteer work and was involved with public television and fundraising for AIDS. I wonder now why that declined. Has the malleable social conscious I had when I was fresh out of college and alight with idealism given way to cynicism? I admit over the years that my work became more involved, with its incessant demands leaking into evening hours and weekends to the point where the line was utterly blurred. And I became selfish with my free time...namely, because I had less and less of it. Yet now, oddly, that comment on NPR stayed with me. I need to participate again. But how?

It's really a matter of carving out the time and finding the organization who wants my help. I think it's something we should do, though. The reward is defining your own role in an active society. I'll find that road. And well, Hollaback Girl, there's a Bingo parlor full of senior citizens on Bennett Way that are anxiously anticipating your arrival this summer.

Dr. King said it best:

"There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it".