{"id":4355,"date":"2025-01-20T07:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T12:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4355"},"modified":"2025-01-20T07:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T12:47:14","slug":"happy-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/20\/happy-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Music historians call it Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cclassic period.\u201d

Pop music fans simply call it miraculous.

During a four-year span (1972-1976), the Motown singer\/composer, who had just turned 21, churned out five albums of extraordinary, even explosive creativity. Music of My Mind, Talking Book<\/em>, Innervisions, Fulfillingness\u2019 First Finale<\/em>, and Songs in the Key of Life<\/em> redefined the depth and scope of popular music.

Even casual music fans can identity hits like \u201cIsn\u2019t She Lovely,\u201d \u201cSuperstition,\u201d \u201cLiving for the City,\u201d and \u201cHigher Ground.\u201d

The artist originally marketed as \u201clittle Steve Wonder,\u201d the blind genius at the keyboard, didn\u2019t just write love songs. He sang passionately about the Black community\u2019s search for economic equality, civil rights, and social justice. Such compositions became part of the soundtrack of a large segment of American Black culture.

That left Stevie in an ideal position in 1983 to campaign for the establishment of a national holiday celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Three hurdles of approval needed to be cleared \u2013 positive responses from a Democrat-controlled House, a Republican-dominated Senate, and President Ronald Reagan, who was not generally regarded as a social progressive.

To encourage the government to take action, Stevie decided to write a song honoring Dr. King. He called it \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d It includes these words:

I just never understood
How a man who died for good
Could not have a day that would
Be set aside for his recognition<\/em>
Because it should never be
Just because some cannot see
The dream as clear as he
That they should make it become an illusion<\/em>
And we all know everything
That he stood for time will bring
For in peace, our hearts will sing
Thanks to Martin Luther King<\/em>

In August 1983, the House overwhelmingly passed the resolution to establish the third Monday of January as MLK Day. The Senate followed suit in October, and a month later President Reagan signed the bill into law.

As music critic Wesley Morris points out in his book The Wonder of Stevie<\/em>, that marked only the beginning of the impact of the artist\u2019s special campaign song.

Just as \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d has become the unofficial national anthem of the Black community, \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d now occupies a unique place in many Black birthday celebrations.

Morris notes that when the cake appears and the candles are lit, family members and friends typically sing the traditional Happy Birthday song. But that\u2019s just a warmup. Stevie\u2019s song comes next, and it caps everything. Check out the original recording: Happy Birthday<\/a>

A song originally intended to celebrate the birthday of a single person has now morphed into a song \u201cfor all of our lives,\u201d as Morris puts it, \u201cto celebrate our place in the world.\u201d Together we acknowledge that each of us had nothing to do with our own grand entrance onto life\u2019s stage.

Think about it: The day you were born was arguably the most helpless 24 hours of your life.

On that day there was nothing to accomplish on your personal To Do List except to take your first breath.\u00a0You were weak.\u00a0And immobile. And uneducated.\u00a0And uncoordinated.\u00a0And high maintenance.\u00a0And speechless.\u00a0Although it\u2019s a pretty good bet you weren\u2019t entirely silent.

In other words, the day you arrived in the world was a day of pure grace.

It may be that your arrival was an occasion of boundless joy.\u00a0Perhaps you were the answer to your parents\u2019 most fervent prayers.

Or you may have come into the world, as far as your parents were concerned, as an unintended, unwanted, unwelcomed interruption.

Martin Heidegger, the 20th<\/sup> century German existentialist philosopher, taught the notion of \u201cthrown-ness.\u201d\u00a0 Every human being, Heidegger believed, experiences the sensation of being thrown<\/em>, or hurled unceremoniously, into the meaninglessness of existence.\u00a0After all, not one of us had any choice as to parents, circumstances, ethnicity, geography, or generation.\u00a0

But there\u2019s another way to grapple with the meaning of our lives.\u00a0

We can reflect deeply on these words of David: \u201cFor you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother\u2019s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made\u2026 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.\u00a0Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be\u201d (Psalm 139:13-16).\u00a0

Every year, your birthday is a reminder that your life was intended by God.\u00a0And you did nothing to deserve that.

You were not thrown into meaninglessness.\u00a0You were invited into the drama of God\u2019s Story.\u00a0Not because of anything you might have done, or might still do.\u00a0But simply because you are<\/em>.

That\u2019s pure grace.

So thank God that you were personally invited to join the party that only he could throw.\u00a0And thank God that we\u2019ve had the privilege of sharing our lives with some remarkable individuals.\u00a0

It’s in that spirit that we say, \u201cHappy birthday, Dr. King!\u201d<\/em>

Stevie would be the first to add that the grace of all<\/u> of our arrivals in this world should fill us with nothing less than wonder.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Music historians call it Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cclassic period.\u201d Pop music fans simply call it miraculous. During a four-year span (1972-1976), the Motown singer\/composer, who had just turned 21, churned out five albums of extraordinary, even explosive creativity. Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness\u2019 First Finale, and Songs in the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,855],"class_list":["post-4355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grace","tag-martin-luther-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4357,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions\/4357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}