Strength To Love

Message from Barack Obama:

Today marks what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 90th birthday. 

And although he's not with us today, Dr. King's steadfast commitment to the causes of equality and justice continue to transform the world. I still draw inspiration from his words to an audience in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1957: 

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" 

This message is as important now as it was more than 60 years ago. Dr. King taught us that if we work together—if folks of all backgrounds, experiences, and walks of life find common ground—we can bend the arc of the moral universe and change history. 

As 2018 came to a close, I asked you to make a commitment in 2019—to look at your community and find something you could do to make a difference. There's no better time to take action than by turning Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day into a day of service. 

Let's honor the legacy of one of history's greatest changemakers together—by taking steps to make a positive collective impact on the world. 

What can you do to serve on MLK Day? It can be as simple as volunteering at your local library, bringing canned goods to a food pantry, or checking in on senior citizens in your neighborhood. Even the smallest acts of kindness help spur change in our communities. 

Let's turn next Monday into a day of service. What will you do to make your community stronger? Share your plans with me: 


Just as I'm inspired by Dr. King, I'm inspired by the many people who shared their commitments for 2019 with me. 

Leaders like Sunday from Nigeria who is connecting rural healthcare facilities to solar power after seeing too many newborn babies and new mothers die due to power outages. 

And Alyssa from Maryland who shared her plans to hold a monthly racial dialogue group in her rural community. 

People like Regina from Wisconsin who committed to volunteer for a local nonprofit to ensure kids don't go hungry after school and on the weekends. 

Like Sunday, Alyssa, and Regina, I hope I can count on you to both serve next Monday, and to encourage your neighbors, friends, and family to take action as well—on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and beyond. 

Your efforts—however big or small—to improve our neighborhoods, our communities, and our world, will inspire countless others, just like Dr. King's actions did. 

Let's get going, 

Barack 

Hearing the voice of a Christian on Easter Morning 2018 / The Second Day of Passover 5778

With immense gratitude for having witnessed the power of the human spirit in Maya Angelou this Easter morning and for the local non-Christian friend who shared this powerful Christian voice with me, another non-Christian.

"I'm grateful to be a practicing Christian.  I'm always amazed when people say, 'I'm a Christian.'  I think, 'Already?' It's an ongoing process. You know, you keep trying.  And blowing it and trying and blowing it." -- Maya Angelou

A local friend of mine who will be 90 years old soon said that all she knows for sure is that "something" happened on Easter morning all those centuries ago.  She doesn't claim to know what happened.  I've never heard her talk about virgin birth or resurrection.  She doesn't insist that anyone else believe that something happened.  She belongs to one of several local First Congregational Churches (United Church of Christ) which have lesbians as pastors.  My friend has been a Christian all her life, a life of turmoil and grace.

My friend stands with a diverse group of Christians throughout the centuries, including Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez as well as numerous dear friends of mine who identify as Christian and who have walked through their lives or continue to walk through their lives in what they hope is the true spirit of Jesus.

This morning I'm reminded of what John Lennon said in 1966, when I was 16 years old.  His words stayed with me:

"Christianity will go, he had said.  It will vanish and shrink.  I needn't argue about that; I know I'm right and I will be proved right.  We're more popular than Jesus now.  I don't know which will go first -- rock & roll or Christianity.  Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

At that time, I was attending the Episcopal Church every Sunday with my family.  My family went to church together until the fall of 1967 when I stopped going to church during my freshman year of college because so many of my friends by that time were Jewish and/or atheist, and I could no longer listen to sermons that denied the validity of the beliefs of Jewish people as well as anyone who was not a Christian.  Not long after I stopped going to church, my mother stopped going to church. This was not long after one of the priests at our church was found to have been molesting one of the choir boys who was the same age I was. Within a year of the time I left the church, my younger sisters also stopped going to church.  My father continued to go to church alone for a while, but then he stopped going to church as well, never to join a church again until he became a member of the Crystal Cathedral.  He never visited the Crystal Cathedral but faithfully watched its services on television from 1994 until his death in 2003, donating 10% of his income to that church and continuing to wonder if Jesus truly was the "son of God."

It has been my good fortune to learn over and over again that all followers of Jesus are not thick and ordinary. Maya Angelou was not thick and ordinary.  My father was not thick and ordinary.  My Christian friends are not thick and ordinary.  Something still keeps me from identifying as a Christian, but it does not keep me from listening with all my heart to those Christians who do not twist Jesus' message and who inspire me to experience the loving power that Martin Luther King, Jr., talked about again and again in his sermons:

"Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.  The transformed nonconformist, moreover, never uses the passive sort of patience as an exercise to do nothing.  And this very transformation saves him from speaking irresponsible words that estrange without reconciling ... He recognizes that social change will not come overnight, yet he works as though it is an imminent possibility." (p. 18, Strength To Love, a book of sermons published in 1963 and published again with an introduction by Coretta Scott King, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968)

From the book, The Glorious Impossible, by Madeleine L'Engle:

"... After his resurrection he was never recognized by sight, but by his voice, or in the breaking of bread, the eating of fish ..."

May this day, Easter 2018 as well as the second day of Passover 5778, be an opportunity to listen for voices, Christian or otherwise, who speak out against the ever-present forces of injustice.

UNTITLED / FROM A DREAM DURING WARTIME (EARLY 1970s)

This morning while reading The Sandbox, I found
this and this on a blog from Afghanistan written by a man with 100 days left before his return to the United States .

May all soldiers return home safely. May I continue to listen to soldiers and their families who speak from all points of view.

In STRENGTH TO LOVE, a collection of sermons by Martin Luther King, Jr., the first sermon is titled "A tough mind and a tender heart." In this sermon he says, "We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart."

A tough mind and a tender heart is what I am looking for in our next president. Whom, I wonder, would Martin Luther King, Jr., who took a clear and courageous stand against the war in Vietnam, vote for in 2008?

I don't presume to have the answer.

(Untitled drawing in India ink by Old Girl Of The North Country)