Monday, January 22, 2018

LISTEN – A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We just celebrated Dr. MLK Jr.'s birthday. His efforts affected the situations, not only of African Americans, but of all oppressed people.
Marting Luther King likened his journey to that of Moses, leading his people to the promised land. Both Moses and Martin seemed destined to lift humankind above its baser tendencies as they followed a divine calling.
Moses' encounter occurred in the wilderness when Yahweh appeared in the form of a burning bush.i Dr. King's, occurred one night early in the Montgomery Bus boycottii He had come home from a meeting after Coretta and the kids had gone to bed. The phone rang, and an anonymous caller threatened his life. He went to bed but couldn't sleep. The path before him seemed impossible. Then, while praying aloud, he felt the presence of God as he never had before.iii
I used to question my commitment because I never had a profound religious experience. Then, I learned that the beginning of Dr. King's career was also unremarkable. He wrote:iv
My call to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular. It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light experience on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden realization. Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me. This urge expressed itself in a desire to serve God and humanity, and the feeling that my talent and my commitment could best be expressed through the ministry.
Martin was the son of a prominent parents, his mother a musician and his father the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It was here where he was nurtured spiritually, intellectually and in his concern for racial justice. It was here that his urge to serve God and humanity was cultivated. This urge was further enhanced by like-minded people in seminary, in graduate school and in the civil rights movement. In this context Martin's epiphany in Montgomery, was not a new beginning as much as it was powerful affirmation on his journey.
I now realize that some of us are blessed with profound life experiences, but these alone will not keep us going. Jesus had a religious experience in his baptism, but even he had to go into the wilderness from time-to-time to pray. It's the less dramatic experiences that keep us going. This is why it's so important for each of us to listen for that inner urge that moves in our lives.
My inner urge was conditioned by my early life experiences in a small town in rural Minnesota. I was raised in a family that emphasized caring for one another. Because of this, I was acutely aware of people who suffered through no fault of their own.

I remember a family who lived near us. Their shabby house was set back among some trees in a weedy lot. Broken toys littered the yard. Little kids, in worn clothes, came in and out of the house. One day, I learned their mother had died in her sleep, probably from asthma. I anguished for these children. Imagine the horror. A little child wakes in the morning and discovers her mom dead in her bed. The image still haunts me.

There was grown man in our town who pushed himself around in a red wagon. His face was covered with stubble. He wore work overhauls and drooled. He smiled, waving his hands aimlessly, if people greeted him. What must it have been like to be trapped in his body?

A Downs Syndrome kid lived in our neighborhood. His mom was a hair dresser who operated a small business out of her home. I was impressed by the way his parents normalized his living, treating him, as much as possible, like all the other kids his age. He would never be able to live independently. What would happen when his parents were too old to care for him?

These people of my youth continue to live in my inner world. They motivate me as I engage others who are suffering through no fault of their own. I felt an urge to minimize their suffering.
When I was in high school, I read, “The Last Temptation of Christ” by Nikos Kazantzakis. I resonated with the life and values of the Jesus described by Kazantzakis. He was no longer just a figure on the church altar. He was a flesh and blood man who had the same struggles as I had. This enhanced my urge to get involved.
While in college, I visited the Taize monastery in France.v While eating and working with the monks and enjoying the beautiful land, I was overcome with a sense of peace and harmony.
When I directed the Madison Urban Ministry, I encountered committed people of many races, religions and economic conditions. These folks motivated me, and the urge grew stronger.
Now, love for my daughter and grandson has brought my wife and me to the Boston area. Here we are connecting with wonderful people, some at a local coffee shop, others at a little United Methodist Church and still others in local social justice groups. All the while I continue to be nurtured by past friends and family members.
Something in me continues to press onward. This is the same thing that motivated Martin Luther King Jr. and all those people who sacrificed their lives in the Civil Rights Movement. It continues to move through unnamed people in unknown places throughout the world. It manifests in little reports of courage and goodness that will not be drowned out by the negative news that floods over us daily.
The Spirit moves relentlessly like the wind blowing across the ocean. It produces swells that grow to become waves, with foaming crests, that crash against the shore. People like Dr. MLK Jr. are the magnificent leading edge of these waves.
Still, these heroes and heroines are just markers in a larger social movement. As with the crashing wave, we only notice the foaming waters at the crest. But without the millions of droplets making up the waves, there would be no crests.
The giant wave of the Civil Rights movement crashed against the shore and is receding. Unfortunately, the words of Dr. King in his Beyond Vietnam Speechvi are as true today as they were fifty years ago. He said:
We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers (and social networks), profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism (prejudice), extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. 
It is time for a renewal of a civil rights movement for the 21st century. The winds of the Spirit continue to blow. The ground swells are obvious as environmental groups, scientists, local governments and faith communities begin to respond to the efforts of new groups; #MeToo; Black Lives Matter; The Poor Peoples' March; The Standing Rock Sioux, opposing a pipeline over Native lands; Immigrants Rights groups; LGBTQ groups; and others.
It is time for each of us do our little part. We are called to respond even though our efforts will probably go unnoticed in the larger scheme of things. I yearn for a future where each of us will listen for and respond to the inner urge to commit our lives to a future of justice, peace and compassion. Then we can say with Dr. King:
I have a dream that (our) little children will one day live in a (world) where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. …. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every (nation), we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black, (brown, yellow, red) and white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, (Buddhists, Moslems and others) will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
iExodus 3:1-17
iihttp://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/
iiihttp://www.sparknotes.com/biography/mlk/section3/page/2/
ivhttp://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/my_call_to_the_ministry/index.html
vhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taizé_Community
vihttp://www.famous-speeches-and-speech-topics.info/martin-luther-king-speeches/martin-luther-king-speech-beyond-vietnam.htm

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