Moral Authority
A Revolution of Values Transforming Racism, Materialism and Militarism
Across the decades, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King calls to us today for a “revolution of values,” to turn the “giant triplets of racism, militarism, and materialism into peace, justice, and love.Civil Rights leaders Vincent and Rosemary Harding who worked closely with Dr. King in the 1960s explain, “Martin wasn’t assassinated for simply wanting black and white children to hold hands, but because he said there must be fundamental changes in this country and that black people must take the lead.”
Activists’ goals were not only desegregating buses but building what Dr. King called the beloved community. Dr. King’s leadership inspired women’s rights, gay rights, anti-war and ecological movements.
Dr. King warned: material growth has been made an end in itself and scientific power has outrun spiritual power.
Dr. King said we have “guided missiles and misguided men.” He called for a shift from a “thing” oriented society to a person centered one. We need interconnection and participation.
We defend democracy, he said, by removing the conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice.
Love of power destroys community, love, agape love, Dr King believed, promotes the well-being of all, restores or creates community.
Dr. King was an American revolutionary.
The survival of life on earth depends on our transforming ourselves into planetary and global citizens who as Dr. King put it, “develop an overriding loyalty to [hu]mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.”
Our task is to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures.
This is an awakening to the divinity or sacredness in all life.
Everyone has a contribution to make.
These are the times to grow our souls.
So says civil rights activist 96 year old Grace Lee Boggs in The Next American Revolution. Boggs expresses profound appreciation for the leadership of individuals like Dr. King and Malcolm X.
What’s needed now, she says, is not a next charismatic leader.
The next American revolution will come through many small communities
where everyone participates and contributes.
Like in quantum physics, “activities in one part of the whole create effects that appear in distant places. Because of these unseen connections, there is potential value in working anywhere in the system.”
Small activities affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness.
In what Margaret Wheatley in Leadership and the New Science calls the exquisitely connected world, change happens not through “critical mass”
but “critical connections.”
A new and better world is built by our engaging in improving the physical, psychological, political, and spiritual health of ourselves, our families, our communities, our cities, and our planet. Bring passion, imagination, creativity, writes Boggs, to where you live and work.
In this next revolution, children will know they have unique contributions,
we’ll give them opportunities to exercise their creative energies. and value them as whole human beings.
Everyone, the very old and the very young, has a contribution to make.
Communities will balance activity with reflection, work with play. Everyone will share the load, bear the burdens, help ease the pain, have fun, create, comfort, shine. Boggs says, we need laughter, joy and a sense that our souls and the souls of those we work with are growing.
I see this growing here as children lead us in worship, kids and adults enact stories, sing, take hands, share work, meals, and service with integrity and joy.
Art, Boggs believes, is central. She says the songs of the civil rights movement,
such as Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around did more than energize those on the front lines. The songs helped grow supporters and grow souls all over the world.
“Art,” Boggs writes, “can help us to envision the new cultural images we need to grow our souls.”
Small collaborative actions that build community are priorities.
Our art project Toys into Peace Dove engages all ages in conversation and collaboration.
In our talking about the complex, complicated topic of toys, we open our lives and stories to one another.
We all know a stuffed bunny rabbit can become a torpedo; teenage mutant ninja turtles can sit down to a civilized tea party.
Still we want to learn how to live lives of wholeness, integrating all sides of ourselves, the creative and the destructive.
We want to know how to deal with violence in us and outside us in productive ways.
Here are some things people have been saying and writing about toys.
These dart guns belonged to my son, now 39 years old. I kept them, thinking they would be toys for grandchildren, but never gave them, considering them to be too dangerous. I’m glad to turn them into a peaceful purpose!
Game piece, a reminder that I want to learn how to win gracefully and lose gracefully and know this is a game for play and fun.
This toy soldier wants to learn how to stop violence, protect communities in peaceful, effective ways.
A toy car symbol of needing a cool car to be cool; materialism…always wanting a new, better thing.
This is a toy car. We have "spare the air" days when people aren’t suppose to have fires. How much air would we spare if we changed our ways of transportation?
Monopoly piece, a symbol of multinational corporations, monopolies, corporate greed over human need.
I learned from Monopoly that wealth begets wealth; the less money, the more debt. You win when you force the other person to go bankrupt.
Both of my sons are attracted to war toys and “hyper-masculine” figures. We have not prohibited them outright, so we negotiate on a toy-by-toy basis. It is exhausting with all the other challenges of parenthood!
I am glad I come to church here, where these issues are at least talked about
and I can learn that my much-respected minister Bill once played with toy soldiers.
Dino the Dinosaur is from a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Need I say more? Corporate enticement!
Hannah Montana represents the “perfect” image we cannot attain. You have to have a certain look to be beautiful, to be special.
This doll wants to be a messenger for peace and not just a bobble head.
This doll’s look was never my look – my complexion darker, my hair not long straight and blonde, but brown and curly, my body, smaller some places; other places, rounder, bigger.
This bit of molded red plastic is called an “Indian,” portrayed as a fierce warrior, tomahawk in hand.
This Monopoly house represents all the foreclosures, people losing their homes
while a few other people accumulate enormous wealth.
Monopoly, the biggest game in America.
A superhero as if one guy acting alone could save Metropolis.
Video games so like soldiers sitting before a screen sending drones to destroy people and places.
Video games where you rise in levels, in rank by killing.
This tank, a reminder of the big bucks made through producing military weapons.
I remember my mother saying to my father and uncle, “I can’t believe you are playing a game with this little girl and you’re cheating.”
A sling shot from childhood wars, getting hit by rocks hurt.
These toys and this conversation about toys remind me of the real violence of my father. He struck out at me.
This toy warrior wants to learn non-violent communication and become a dove of peace.
This gun represents my desire to disarm my heart and turn my voice and way of being into peace at home, at church, in the world, inner and outer peace.
We create, collaborate. Each of us an artist, a creator, a transformer.
Something is being born more than any one of us could bring into being alone.
In our collaboration and creativity, we see each of us “Born of the earth, Child of God…one among the family.”
Noah, his family, and all those animals were on the ark.
The wind blew and the rain fell.
The waters rose.
The highest mountains were covered.
Nearly everything died.
Everyone on dry land, every living, breathing creature died.
Only Noah and his company lived.
The floodwaters took over for 150 days.
Then inch by inch the water lowered.
Days passed.
Noah sent out a dove.
The dove came back with an olive leaf in its beak.
A leaf, a sign of land, life, joy, gratitude.
Peace restored
The dove symbol of hope for the next generation!
Deep gratitude and highest honor to Dr. King, Malcom X, Vincent and Rosemary Harding, Grace Lee Boggs and all those who have brought us this far.
Before spirits die, may the flood waters of racism, militarism, and materialism lower.
See signs of life. Disarm our hearts. Promote well being of all. Turn ourselves toward love. And may we see here, right here, a dove of integrity, joy, service, hope!
We are all in this together. “Born of the earth, Child of God…just one among the family,” the next revolutionaries.
We say to one another: And you can count on me to share the load, hold your burdens, help you ease your pain.
Lean on me I am your sister; Believe on me, I am your friend.
Let us all fold the world in our arms like a white wing dove…
Shine in your soul. Amen.
Resources
Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-first Century, University of California Press, 2011
Cris Williamson’s song Sister
Copyright © 2012, Revs. Bill and Barbara Hamilton-Holway. All Rights Reserved
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