"To guard ourselves from bitterness"
I will be reading Martin Luther King, Jr’s sermon collection, Strength to Love, across four weeks in January. If you would like to read along, you can purchase a copy here.
Go to schedule and see all notes.
Week 3: Chapters IX-XII
“To Guard Ourselves From Bitterness”
This week, I want to examine two sentences from King’s sermon, “Shattered Dreams.” In them, he describes an embodied hope that grows from the suffering and unfinished work of the present. I find it beautifully, believably ambitious:
To guard ourselves from bitterness, we need the vision to see in this generation’s ordeals the opportunity to transfigure both ourselves and American society. Our present suffering and nonviolent struggle to be free may well offer to Western civilization the kind of spiritual dynamic so desperately needed for survival. (93)
Let’s break it down:
To guard ourselves from bitterness,
To create space for hope and joy,
we need the vision to see
we must look beyond the surface, drawing on imagination and faith.
the opportunity
There is an invitation (but not a guarantee)
to transfigure
to make something holy
both ourselves and American society.
of ourselves and our neighbors, together.
Our present suffering and nonviolent struggle
Here, now, we choose the difficult path, which answers violence with love.
to be free
Our goal is our collective liberation.
may well offer to Western civilization
We hope (without guarantee) to provide our culture
the kind of spiritual dynamic
with a model for the inner and outer work (faith and action)
so desperately needed for survival.
that is urgently needed to sustain life.
Dang. That is A LOT to process in only two beautiful sentences.
To create space for hope and joy, we must look beyond the surface, drawing on imagination and faith. There is an invitation to make something holy of ourselves and our neighbors, together. Here, now, we choose the difficult path, which answers violence with love. Our goal is collective liberation. We hope (without guarantee) to provide our culture with a model for the inner and outer work (faith and action) that is urgently needed to sustain life.
Today, 60 years later, partisan winds rage, American democracy teeters, and the violence of white supremacy persists. This message is evergreen. As I remember King and those who worked alongside him, I see his promise fulfilled. They did indeed offer us a model for embodied hope, “the kind of spiritual dynamic so desperately needed for survival.”
Let’s carry the baton.
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