MLK and Lincoln

As I celebrated Martin Luther King Day, I went back and read some of his words.  His gift for language and his ability to elevate his listeners with the images of justice and freedom was extraordinary.  I was reminded of the same quality in Abraham Lincoln.  It was the power to appeal to what is best in us and to elevate us to a place above where we currently stand.  When Lincoln was inaugurated for his first term, the country was in turmoil.  Several states had threatened secession, the union was in jeopardy, and violence was in the air.  Lincoln used his inaugural address to seek to bring the nation together and to prevent what he knew would be a horrible civil war.  As he ended his speech, he wrote:
I am loath to close. We are  not enemies but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Would that our political leaders today, could speak with such eloquence and passion to the need for unity, respect, and and mutual affection as King and Lincoln.  Words do matter and today's leaders and commentators use them as weapons, not the balm of Gilead.