Last Sunday night and last Monday, January 20 and 21, I was a part of local celebrations of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday night I had the privilege of participating in an ecumenical worship service at St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church. Worshipping with persons from different denominations and different racial-ethnic backgrounds seemed a wonderful way to celebrate a person whose life was dedicated to taking down walls that separated people, among other things. Monday I attended the local MLK breakfast and heard Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s speech, simulcast from Minneapolis. I remember her from the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS, but was not aware of her story. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Georgia (1962), and one of the first two African-Americans admitted to the school. She shared some of her experiences, including receiving death threats simply because she was African-American and attending the University of Georgia. This was less than fifty years ago in the United States! After the breakfast, I went to the local elementary school where I mentor a young boy. Mondays are my usual day to do this, but somehow it seemed even more appropriate to be doing this on the MLK birthday celebration. Then I joined the local march and attending the rally. That afternoon, Laura, our church’s youth director, had arranged a service project for our youth – a “scarfenger hunt.” Teams of youth were given money and sent out to purchase hats, mittens and gloves for needy children in our area. Again, it seemed a particularly appropriate activity for the day. By that evening, I was tired, but frankly, I get tired often enough from the busyness in my life, and it was really nice to be tired after doing some things that made some small difference in the world.

I thought it appropriate to share a couple of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes, along with a quote from Bobby Kennedy, from the speech he made the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. I do so to honor a person who has meant a great deal to me over the years. While not a perfect man, Martin Luther King, Jr. combined a deep intellect, a powerful gift for communication, and a passion to see the world made different. When I was in college, I purchased a couple of records in the cut-out bin and a local record store. They were records (on the “Gordy” label – Barry Gordy, Jr. of Motown) of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking. One record is a speech from Detroit in 1963, parts of which were used in his march on Washington speech later that year (“I Have a Dream”). The other record collects two of his well-known addresses – the sermon “The Drum-Major Instinct” and his Mountaintop speech delivered the night before he died. Along the way I also have an old, rather beat-up cassette tape of King speeches, including, “I Have a Dream.” Whenever I hear his voice, or read his words, something calls to me deep inside – calls me to dream more creatively, to think more deeply and to work more passionately for peace and justice in the world. In Martin’s voice, the voice of the Spirit often speaks to me.

Toughmindedness without tenderheartedness is cold and detached, leaving one’s life in a perpetual winter devoid of the warmth of spring and the gentle heat of summer.
The Strength to Love, 1963

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1964

And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important – wonderful. If you want to be recognized – wonderful. If you want to be great – wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness…. By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve…. You only need a heart full of grace, and a soul generated by love. The Drum-Major Instinct, 1968

I could go on for pages…, but I am not alone in being inspired by Dr. King.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country…. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world.
Bobby Kennedy, April 4, 1968, Indianapolis, after announcing the death of
Martin Luther King, Jr.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David