One thing I noticed working in the Bronx is that leaders come in the craziest places. They don’t always show up at community board meetings. Sometimes it’s just the guys on the corner that the boys on the block respect.
Respect
Now, we occupy a lowly position, both in space and rank in comparison with the heavenly sphere, and the Almighty is Most High not in space, but with respect to absolute existence, greatness and power.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
A human society obeys the dictates of reason and is guided and governed by a respect for justice.
Freedom is a timeless value. The United Nations Charter calls for encouraging respect for fundamental freedoms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions freedom more than twenty times. All countries have committed to protecting individual freedoms on paper – but in practice, too many break their pledge.
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights. Dr. King did not stir us to move for our civil rights to have them taken away in these kinds of fashions.
Many young men in the 1960s and 1970s came to reject some of the traditional ideas about manhood that many of their fathers tried to pass down – like unquestioning respect for authority even when that might mean killing and dying for questionable or unjust causes such as the Vietnam War.
Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.
True security is based on people’s welfare – on a thriving economy, on strong public health and education programmes, and on fundamental respect for our common humanity. Development, peace, disarmament, reconciliation and justice are not separate from security; they help to underpin it.
The gifts of lovers to one another are, in respect to love, nothing but forms; yet, they testify to invisible love.