A day for a King

Yesterday couldn't have been more of a day in contrast.

A man who would be king was inaugurated as President of the United States. Meanwhile, it was also a holiday commemorating a man who had no desire to be a king, even though his fame and moral power could have made him one.

For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I usually write a post on the meaning of the Rev. Dr. King. About while his strategy was nonviolent, his method was to hold America up to the mirror and make it see itself as it was. Not the shining city on a hill, but a nation mired in gross injustice.

But, of course, that wasn't the final goal of him doing so. But holding up that mirror to America, he hoped to shock its conscience so that it would work to fulfill the promise of its founding documents. His desire was not to destroy America. His people had built America, wrenched from villages and towns and cities in Africa to feed the gaping maw of slave labor in the New World. His desire was to make America, to make it as it should be, a land for all who dwelt in. His call was for justice, not retribution. For peace, not war.

The contrast between his example and the display we saw yesterday could not be more stark. Dr. King embodies still the best of this country. He embodies the idea that hope is not predicated on foretold results, but on agency. You hope not because you think you will win; you hope because without that hope, you have no chance of winning anything. Hope is a prerequisite for the achievement of anything in life. Those without hope can follow two paths: either they wither and die; or they get consumed in their hopelessness and lash out, wanting to destroy the world which they feel has betrayed them.

The latter is what we're facing now in this world. And not just in this country.

I wrote this post this month about how we're facing a rebellion of life's losers. But why are they losers? Why are they hellbent on destroying and watching the world burn? Because they have no hope.

Without hope, your life is a grim affair. Without hope, Dr. King could not have done what he did. Without hope, we could not have achieved everything we have to this point in human history. Without hope, this stuttering Cuban kid from the Heights could not have persevered to overcome a world not meant for him.

Hope is both frail and powerful. Frail, because it can so easily be lost. Powerful, because with it mountains bend.

Dr. King was hope personified. He had hope that the country of his birth, which didn't consider him a full human being, could change. And he had hope that he could make that change. Not out of some narcissistic drive, but because it was what his faith called him to do. No one would have blamed him if he had led a violent uprising. But he knew that such uprisings, most of the time, would be crushed. But an uprising he did lead. One of peace. One of moral suasion. An uprising which called America to live up to those better angels of its nature. An uprising which said that injustice to some was injustice to all. A house divided cannot stand; Dr. King wanted to save that house, and rebuild its foundations, so that it had rooms for everyone.

We live in dark times. But they are no darker than those through which Dr. King lived. A descendant of slaves sought to save the descendants of slave masters. We cannot be less than Dr. King. We cannot be less than our ancestors. We are called in this time to do great things. And we must do them, or we will surely perish, never even having tried.

This is the first full day of the new regime. We have a mission. Get to it.