Though we have an official day to recognize Dr. King’s birthday coming up next week, today (January 15) is his actual birthday.
Going to college in Memphis and spending several years there after college, I visited the National Civil Rights Museum (at the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated) many times. I have had the opportunity to take students a couple of times as well.
When Dr. King said, using some words and ideas of minister Theodore Parker in 1810, that “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”, I believe he was calling us to be a part of the bending work. Any passive waiting for bending toward justice seems incongruent with my calling to be a good neighbor, to seek justice, to love mercy, and so many other things.
This quarter in our Bible class we have been working through Father Charlie Stroebel’s The Kingdom of the Poor. In one of the chapters, he talks about how he spent Nixon’s inauguration day. He was closed off in his dorm room, in the darkness, and had covered windows and doors so that no light could get in. He said that he knew even then it was a little foolish, a little idiosyncratic, but as a divinity student in DC on that day, he didn’t know any better way to not give any light to that day. He goes on to say that even if you are just a resister of one, it is still important to resist the forces that need resisting. (And we know he also believed even if you are only a party of one, you still need to do the work that is in front of you, which is how he invited two people from the street into his parish, beginning what is now Room in the Inn).
Bending work looks different for each of us. And I struggle with comparing my gifts/abilities to others, and think I am not doing enough. But if we all work to be a part of the bending, we will move the arc toward justice. I believe this, To be hopeless is incompatible with my faith as well, (and with my general constitution for that matter.)
On Dr. Martin Luther King Day this year many people in our country will be celebrating the inauguration of another president. Like Father Charlie and his feelings about Nixon, I would like to not give light to this coming event. I plan to find a way to serve, to work, to bend. Even if it is just a little.
Teaching (toward) the Beloved Community 