I was baptized at 6 months by a minister who studied with Dr. Martin Luther King at Crozer Seminary. He told my mom that MLK was the angriest man he’d ever met, and for good reason. To be fully human and filled with so much anger, grief & fire to want to burn down all the oppressive, racist, militaristic systems, to topple brutal, unjust power structures, to deeply recognize and embrace his own anger & the anger of others (“a riot is the language of the unheard”), and still to remain committed to moving ahead with non-violent restraint — he showed us a way of being that doesn’t come naturally, but that can be achieved with commitment, *with anger*, and daily practice.
Today I saw a lot of politicians quote Dr. King, even as they vote to green-light billions of dollars for war, death & destruction. I commented on
@vp ’s post: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” which is what King said in 1967 just before he was assassinated. Someone asked, “But what would you do without a strong American military?” I wanted to remember what Dr. King had to say about fear. From his sermon “The Mastery of Fear,” given in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1957, here are his three final points that are more timely than ever:
1. The basic cause of war is fear. Of course there are other causes—economic, political, racial—but they all spring from and are shot through with fear.
2. We are accustomed to hearing that hate causes war. But the sequence of events is generally quite otherwise — first fear, then war, then hate. Fear of another nation’s attack, fear of another nation’s economic supremacy, fear of lost markets.
3. The old remedy for fear was great armaments. But how futile. Instead of being a remedy, great armament has become a cause for fear. It is only love that will solve the problem.
Here’s to stopping cycles of violence, to getting to the root causes of injustice, to trying every day a different way that doesn’t come naturally, to feeling fear, grief & anger deeply, and choosing love & all the things that make us really live.
Beautiful artwork by
@janineawan ❤️🔥🕊️
