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Archives from recent homepage, part 2 St. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Honey and Vinegar Tasters
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St. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What Would Martin Luther King, Jr. Do? by Marianne Williamson As the nation paused on his birthday to give honor to the life of Martin Luther King Jr., I noticed how with each passing year, Dr. King becomes less a man, and more an image. Generations of people now speak of him who have no memory of that tragic day when Dr. King was killed, much less the heady days when he lived among us. While we have been successful at keeping his memory alive, we often fail to recognize, and pass along, the richness and complexity of the ideas for which he lived and died. Dr. King is, and hopefully will always be, credited with the success of the Civil Rights movement. But in his mind, the movement had larger, more all-embracing goals than simply the end of institutional racism in the United States. The desegregation of the American South, according to Dr. King, was merely the political externalization of the goal of the Civil Rights movement. The ultimate goal, he said, was the "establishment of the beloved community." And to Dr. King, that ultimate goal was not just a philosophical context, or an inspired religious hope. The peace that flows from brotherhood and justice is a positive force, which alone has the power to guarantee humanity's evolution beyond constantly recurring patterns of injustice and oppression. Just as health is more than the absence of sickness -- but rather a positive state to be pro-actively cultivated -- Dr. King recognized that peace is more than the absence of war. "True peace," said Dr. King, "is not merely the absence of some negative force - tension, confusion, or war; it is the presence of some positive force - justice, good will and brotherhood." Dr. King was an early holistic thinker, recognizing that spiritual understanding was a necessary complement to traditional political activism. The goal of the beloved community, he said, "will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives." Non-violence was not just a political tool to be applied when there was a problem, then forgotten when there was not. Rather, non-violence is a way of life, according to Dr. King, in the absence of which we will always be creating more problems to contend with. Dr. King's emphasis on our efforts to create what we want, as opposed to merely destroying what we do not want, was key to his spiritual authority as well as his political effectiveness. And it is that aspect of Dr. King's thinking -- his insistence on love as both means and end to all non-violent political activism -- that we must embrace, and pass along to our children, if we are to be true to his spirit. As we do, we recognize the startling, even urgent significance of King's philosophy to the world today. Throughout America this week, people were exhorted to do community service as a way of honoring the spirit of Dr. King. Yet those who have read his works most closely, would be reminded that there was far, far more to the man than a call to community service. It behooves us to ask at times such as these, "What would Dr. King do now?" For it is not just the past to which he cried out for the betterment of the human condition. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to eternals, and eternals are always relevant. Just as Dr. King spoke out against the war in Viet Nam, one wonders what he would be thinking as we prepare for war against Iraq. Neither Dr. King in his time, nor any of us now, wish to see a weak America. Yet many of us, like him, have come to question how much strength there is in violence. "The ultimate weakness of violence," said Dr. King, "is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it." It is difficult to express such things in America today, without being branded an unrealistic dreamer. Indeed, the status quo no more embraces the philosophy of non-violence today than it did thirty-five years ago. For love, peace, brotherhood and justice are radical concepts, as much so today as they were decades ago, or centuries ago. And the notion that military power is strength -- while brotherhood and love are weakness -- is a spiritually perverse worldview with unfortunately as much grip on the American mind today as it had during Dr. King's lifetime. It is that assumption, I believe, which he would challenge, were he here. Dr. King inspired us to look to the love at the core of the human experience, for a vision that beckons all humanity. "We are challenged to rise," he said, "above the narrow confines or our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The new world is a world of geographical togetherness. This means that no individual or nation can live alone. We must all learn to live together, or we will be forced to die together. ... Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make it a brotherhood. We are all involved in the single process. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are all links in the great chain of humanity... we have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization." Dr. King was as serious when he talked about love, as some people are when they talk about war. And so should we be, if we claim to truly embrace what he lived and died for. |
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© 1995-2008 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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