Martin Luther King Jr.

I've always been challenged and inspired by the words and life of Martin Luther King Jr.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend a few hours at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN.  They have turned the Lorraine Hotel, where King was assassinated, into a museum dedicated to the struggle for equality in America, especially during the Civil Rights movement.  I usually kinda despise museums.  Not on purpose- I go to them eager to learn about and experience history and art, or whatever else might be in a museum.  But I have this subconscious reaction that takes place once I enter a museum.  It's like life is sucked out of me and I am instantly bored out of my mind.  Here's an extreme example of this: I had the privilege of going to the Louvre in Paris.  I was truly excited to go.  Within minutes I was lying on a bench waiting for my family to finish their once-in-a-lifetime museum experience.  Sounds ridiculous, and I'm sure it looked even more ridiculous, but it's true.  I don't know what the deal is, but it always happens.  So I went to the Civil Rights Museum hoping this wouldn't happen, and it didn't happen quite as extremely, but I was also able to push through for quite awhile.

Few things move me more than issues surrounding oppression and social injustice.  I feel physical pain when I witness, learn about, or even just think about the unbelievably horrific ways that we treat each other.  Therefore issues surround racism are especially intriguing and appalling to me.  Enter Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement...

I walked up to the museum and saw the picture to the right.  In my mind, King was up real high or something, I think I just pictured a lot of distance between him and... I don't really know what.  I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I just wasn't emotionally prepared to walk right up to where people were standing when King was shot only a few yards from them.  My eyes were instantly filled with tears and my heart literally hurt.

For much of the next few hours, there was a constant stream of tears rolling down my cheeks.  Humanity at its worst, and humanity at its best... tears of sorrow and conviction, and tears of admiration and inspiration.  I was filled with the agonizing "why?" questions.  I burned with anger.  I trembled in anguish.  I grieved.  I longed and hoped for a drastically different future.  I dreamed of ways that God might use me to bring His Kingdom here now.  And the "why?" questions continued, and continue...

I don't really have a point to this post, because I'm trying to avoid going into my thoughts and opinions.  I guess my intention is to say if you ever have a chance to go the the Civil Rights Museum you really should go, and to remind all of us that the issues that brought about the Civil Rights Movement are still issues that we need to be wrestling with and addressing TODAY.  In the everyday ways that we talk to and about people, in challenging the stereotypes and prejudices we hold, in the things we pray for, in the things we strive to change on mass levels, and in what we hope for.  Part of the beauty of God's kingdom is the diversity of His people (Revelation 7:9-10), and thus part of our call is to persevere in the mission to bring such a kingdom to earth.

I'll leave you with two of my favorite King quotes:



"They said to one another..
Behold, here cometh the dreamer...
Let us slay him...
And we shall see what becomes of his dreams."



More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.   (Letter From Birmingham Jail)

The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well-being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.   (From Pilgrimage to Nonviolence)