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Happy Birthday, Dr. King!
We celebrate the birthday of this great and noble man. The essential writings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are collected in a volume called “A Testament of Hope.” My copy looks like a well-worn Bible, with flagged pages, margin notations, and thumbed bindings. His writings of 60+ years ago are still as relevant as the day they were written, and I continue to turn to him for inspiration and as a call to action for me and for our agency. He would be 96 years old today. Imagine – had he lived, what more we would have learned! As an agency that seeks to affirm the dignity of all people, we give thanks for his wisdom.
Let us reflect on his definition of Agape love:
“…agape love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all. Agape is overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. …it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When we rise to love on this level, we love all people, not because we like them, not because their ways appeal to us, but we love them because God loves them. We rise to the point of loving the person who does an evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “love your enemies.” I am very happy that he didn’t say ‘like your enemies,’ because it is pretty difficult to like some people. Like is sentimental, and it is pretty difficult to like someone bombing your home, threatening your children, or trying to defeat your civil rights. Love is greater than like.”
Let us reflect on his philosophy of nonviolence:
“It is as much a moral obligation to refuse to cooperate with evil as it is to cooperate with good. Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as the cooperation with good. Be willing to stand up courageously on the idea of civil disobedience and follow the moral obligation to obey just and right laws, see when laws are unjust, and know the difference. A just law is a law that squares with moral law, any law that uplifts human personality. A law out of harmony with the moral law and that degrades the human personality is an unjust law.”
Let us reflect on the Beloved Community:
“Agape love might well be the salvation of our civilization. Freedom and Justice will come through love, not through violence, not through hate, not through boycotts, but through love. As we struggle for freedom in America will have to boycott at times, and we will have to practice non-violent civil disobedience. But we remember that these are tools, not the end within itself. These are merely a means to awaken the sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge humans’ false sense of superiority. The end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of love that will bring about miracles in the hearts of all people.”
As we move into uncertain times this year, may we be guided by these principles of love, action, the changing of hearts, and with our eyes on the prize of what it truly means to stand together as humans!
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