Communion

As those of you who've followed my published work know, today--the public holiday in recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, birthday--is my favorite of all holidays. That's because this is our only national holiday which supports a subordinate and seemingly fading spirit underpinning our Constitution: our desire not only for the pursuit of individual liberty; but also our desire for communion, for an active practice and tradition of unifying with each other.

"King sought to bridge that gulf between the social and the spiritual," the Reverand Frank Portee III is quoted in today's Los Angeles Times as saying. "That was the genius of his prophetic leadership."

King was a Christian who understood that Jesus's message of love was not a passive nor an easy one; he was a Christian who was puzzled and appalled by those who claimed to be Christians yet worshipped silently in the shadow of others' oppression. He understood that a philosophy of loving others as you would yourself be loved--of treating with love and prayer those who might persecute or hate you--was and is an extremist position: one that would radically change the world. He acted on it; he changed the world; and he paid the price.

A hunger for spirituality, for communion with others, is clearly one of the dominant forces in American politics today. How can we shift the practices--consumerism, vengeful battles, and the accumulation of obscene wealth chief among them--that merely support our individual pursuit of liberty, toward those that will truly bring us into communion with those less fortunate than ourselves? With so much privilage--education, leisure time, a wealth of resources--why is it so difficult to leverage our wealth and resources in support of others?

One barrier to King's radical notions of love, service, justice and change is a peculiarly american misunderstanding of Christianity itself. As a people, we are plagued by the Puritanical belief that God shows his judgement of us in the forms of earthly wealth and success. In this misguided understanding of christianity, those who prosper deserve to prosper; those who don't, don't. And the deserving prosperous--the righteous--don't take into themselves the radical notion of Jesus's love, and how that might inform all of our actions.

"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," King wrote in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," a letter addressed to white ministers. "Whatever affects one directly, affects us all indirectly."

We inherently know we are part of something much larger than any of our individual selves, and we hunger for that sense of belonging. Yet at the same time, many of our day-to-day actions work to contradict our desire for this communion. Martin Luther King Day is an excellent time to reflect on the ways, small and large, each of us might better let go of ourselves--our egos, our pride, our desires--to better support our communities, our country, and our world. It's a wonderful holiday--may you celebrate it well!