Yesterday, I caught an NPR radio interview of a class of primary school children.  The radio journalist was asking the students what question they would ask Martin Luther King Jr. if they had the opportunity.  The clip played a succession of the student’s responses.  The last response caught me as remarkable, “what are you going to do next?”  I first I thought it was cute.  Then I found it profound.  An civil-rights leader who dies in 1968 has a living legacy that continues to be molded and adapted to the current times.  So much so that an elementary student today can ask “what next.”  Where is your legacy going to take us tomorrow, will it lead the way?  To me, that sense of presence and context is remarkable.  Unlike a fading sports stars who finds their statistics frozen in time and re-count their best years at trading card shows, a movement transported Martin Luther King Jr. like a bookmark through a novel.  As we read the pages it appears that his presence was able to follow along in real time.  The cute question made me ponder.  Who in our respective lives has moved along with us and not been left as a time stamp in a history book.  My father who died suddenly and unexpectedly when I was in my twenty’s has certainly been as present today as when he passed away in the mid 90’s.  What makes these individuals and their impact so transportable?  Do we carry them forward or were they so remarkable that some force sweeps them along?  Is it legacy or do they continue forward because their work is not done?