I thought Monday was supposed to be a day to celebrate the life and message shared by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Instead I found myself feeling more depressed than jovial.

Perhaps I can offer an explanation for my gloomy mood.

Imagine yourself living in a society in which people were no longer judged on the color of their skin. Instead, they are measured on the content of their human character.

If your picture is that of a world strikingly different than the one in which we live, then you too can see King’s dream is still distant from reality.

And that is why I begin this column with a frown.

As I ponder the peaceful expressions made by King, I cannot help but think of our shortcomings as they pertain to living the dream he shared with us.

It seems we focus too much on our differences to ever make the dream become reality.

We have a category for everyone: Black, white, yellow or red; gay, bisexual or straight; Christian, Muslim or Jew; Protestant or Catholic; man or woman; rich or poor; naughty or nice, etc. The list of “ors” can be drawn forever.

And, as history shows, we use those differences to justify violence against one another.

Adolf Hitler launched a campaign to take over the world on notions of bigotry and hate - and people followed him.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Muslim centers across the United States were vandalized because the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington shared that faith.

It seems that over and over again we persecute our human brothers and sisters based on superficial notions of our own superiority.

Those who vandalized mosques couldn’t see through their own notions of hatred and bigotry. Those who worshipped in the mosques may have shared in the same human heartache.

Catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland have waged war on one another for centuries and have yet to stop the violence. Have they not realized both groups share in love for Jesus Christ? The rest is minor details.

What is it about our parallels that cause us to see past them? Don’t our commonalties matter?

People like King remind us we will never be able to celebrate our differences in peace until we celebrate our similarities in harmony.

When I think of King and his dream, it is not the blackness of his skin that I identify with. It is the passion expressed by the words and actions produced from his human soul.

Unlike King, I am not of African descent. I trace most of my roots to Celtic clans. I am not Southern, or Baptist. I’m a Yankee who makes a point every Sunday to attend Catholic Mass.

More importantly, however, the aspects I share with King go much deeper. We are both human. We both share dreams of peace. And we both find hope in our faith of our shared God.

I don’t remember when exactly, but somewhere in the course of my childhood years I was informed that my God created humans in its own image.

If this is so, I used to wonder, why do we all look different? Shouldn’t we all look like God?

It took a lot of time and meditation before I realized the image God endowed us what cannot be seen on the surface of our skin. God’s image rests in our hearts - in our human souls.

King shared the message of his soul with us so that we may know dreams of unity, peace and love are not out of grasp of human reality.

A lot of people prayed Monday for King’s dream to become a way of life. But prayers alone aren’t always enough. Often, they require human effort as well as divine intervention.

If we want the dream to live, we have to do more than remember and hope. We have to learn to see the human heart in every person who comes into our lives.

My soul dreams that we may one day recognize our brothers and sisters on first sight as fellow humans rather than by other superficial labels.

I pray I may be able to do my part in practicing that dream, and that I may be able to teach my children to do the same.

I campaign that you too pray for something similar in your own words to your own image of God or just within your heart.

Then, perhaps, one day our prayers will be answered.

And dreams may become reality.

Matt Treadwell is the State News opinion writer. Reach him at treadwe7@msu.edu.