Journal of Sacred Work

[In the days after the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday, how well are we remembering, and living from, the example he set?]

   Who is the man in the picture (left) with the prison number around his neck and the word "dead" written across the image by someone involved in updating information on former inmates of the Montgomery Jail? Schools, streets and important buildings bear his name. Parents name their children after him. Each year around this time, his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday (his actual birthday was January 15.)

   There can be no doubt that the late Martin Luther King, Jr. is an American hero. Some consider him to be the greatest American of the twentieth century.

   Perhaps, many would think this means that King must have been very close to perfect. But, much as we try to saint some people and assign to them perfection, there is no such thing as perfect.

   King was, however, an almost superhuman carrier of God's Love. He was doomed with the burden all lovers carry. Like Jesus, King was reviled, spit at, imprisoned and hated with a ferocity that finally sent a fatal bullet into to him at the age of thirty-nine.

   To this day, people try to diminsh King's accomplishments by pointing to his womanizing and his plagiarism of his doctoral thesis. Serious as these mistakes may have been, they have little to do with his message of Love or his titanic accomplishments.

   This is because those who dedicate themselves to Love have aligned themselves with an energy which transcends any personal mistakes in judgment. Love doesn't care about human flaws. Love seeks only the fullest possible expression in this world.

   As I have often pointed out in the Journal, the ancient Greeks made sure to implant flaws into each and every one of their heroes. Thus, the famous Achilles, who was perfect and invulnerable except for a fatal weakness in his heel, the only part of his body not covered by the magic water into which his mother dipped him at birth.

   We all have our Achilles' heels, and yet we are reviled when our flaws are suddenly exposed - attacked by people whose own flaws may be covered at the moment.

   As caregivers celebrate King's birthday and his life, not only today but throughout the year, it is comforting to know that history has focused on King's great successes. It would be even more gratifying if King had lived to see this.

-Rev. Erie Chapman