My Conscious Effort to Reflect on the Life of Martin Luther King Junior
Today, Martin Luther King Junior would be 87 years old. Most MLK days, I have had a glimpse of a thought of MLK and then moved on with my day, but, today, I am making a sincere effort: to hold his memory in my heart and those that worked side-by-side with him; and, to reflect on what he believed and the values he strived towards.
On Fear and Action
Every time, I need to hear words that refocus me on the importance on striving for my beliefs in equality, justice, love, compassion, and kindness — I read these words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967
I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice.
I can only imagine the fear that so many lived with during this period, and the hard realities of those times. Somehow, in spite of human tendency — there was a call from MLK for love, compassion and understanding and so many rose to the occasion.
I am so moved by the people of this time to take action — to live their values. They had families, they had work; they needed a roof and food — and, they acted.
I cannot help ask myself: How do I engage?
How do I engage in our civic discourse to support mutual understanding ? How do I engage in our civic discourse to feed our better angels? How do I protect those who are less fortunate? How do I understand those I may disagree with?
I believe a great principle or cause it is always at our door steps, and the struggle to even understand what those principles are for each of us is a worthy endeavour.
(A post about civic engagement after the Women’s Rights March.)
On Interbeing: I am because you are.
Years ago, my sister gave me a picture of the Buddha and on the back of it, she wrote Thich Nah Hanh’s poem “Interbeing.”
Thich Naht Hanh and Martin Luther King were friends and brothers in the struggle against oppression and violence. As MLK was struggling for civil rights in the United Stated; Thich Naht Hanh was struggling to end the Vietnam War.
The concept of “interbeing” is a thread throughout all of MLK’s speeches — the idea that if you hurt, I hurt — the concept that we our all in this together.
The idea that even those who are acting in violence are also suffering. The idea that even I will never meet you, and you are suffering — then, your suffering is my suffering. At the end of the day, we can either believe we are separate and independent, or that we are inextricably tied as beings.
Thich Naht Hanh’s poem is worthy of your time for a slow read:
Interbeing: If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.
If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.
Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.
― Thich Nhat Hanh
The Journey Continues
There are many times that I feel disheartened, but I believe in MLKs realistic view — we have made progress, but the challenges will continue.
There is so much work to be done —both within ourselves; and, in the world.
Today, I am going to reflect and engage in thought, word and action to honor the memory of this man.
And, if you are inspired, watch Robert Kennedy’s words on the death of MLK:
