MLK DAY 2021 - Unlike No Other!

Not even a week into the new year, and 2021 has already seen a tremendous amount of upheaval. The riots in and around the Capitol on January 6th shook all of us. My heart broke to see how far people have gone in their discontentment over ideology. I didn’t serve 21 years in the military to see my fellow citizens tear each other apart so violently.

Even after witnessing this horrific event, it's not the first time our nation has faced a moment like this. Not even close. And today we celebrate the life of a man who helped shepherd a movement through another incredibly tumultuous and too-often violent period: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wish Dr. King’s teachings weren’t still as relevant as they are today, but I am definitely glad that he left such a legacy of wisdom and hopefulness. In particular, I am thinking of a speech he gave at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1966. It may not be one of his more famous talks, but it’s one that seems particularly relevant to this moment. In it, he talked about standing up to evil, but with nonviolence, about meeting opposition with firm resolve but also with love. Here’s one of the passages that stands out to me:

“Somehow, we’ve … been able to look into the face of our most violent opponent and say we will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we will still love you.” 

He was of course speaking about the fight for equality and civil rights, but this seems to me like equally good wisdom today when talking about facing people willing to storm the Capitol itself. Something else he emphasizes in the speech is the need to do the work of fixing the problems in front of us:

 “We must solve this problem not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling. And so the challenge in the days ahead is to work passionately and unrelentingly for the solution to the problem and to go that additional distance necessary to make justice a reality for all people.”

In other words, the conflict and disagreements we’re facing today aren’t going to fix themselves, so what are we going to do about them? It’s a difficult but worthy question for each of us to ask ourselves as we honor the life and legacy of Dr. King today.

 You can read the whole speech at the SMU archives.

Dear God, I pray for you to heal, preserve and bless the United States of America.