If He Walked These Halls

We have gathered to observe a man on a day that has been set aside to honor his legacy.  Specifically, we have come to install a banner as a memorial to our school’s namesake, Martin Luther King.  We opened in 1999, so it’s high time that we freshen the artwork that visitors, students, staff and faculty are greeted to upon entering these doors.  It’s good and right and exciting that we do this.

The image you’ll see of Dr. King is one of resolve, contemplation, and focus.  It is not the face of distraction or fear.  He is intent, solemn and his face and eyes are fixed. 

Since we do this so often, I wonder if Dr. King were here with us today, would he do as we do and critique the “selfie?”  How many of us do that?  We see an image of ourselves and we curl up our noses and say, “oooh.  Not good.”  In a digital era it’s easy to hit delete and wait for a better hair day, better light, or a better face.  Would Dr. King like the image of him? I hope so….

But I think a better question would be this: Would Dr. King like the school we’ve named after him? Would he smile and say “Hey … not bad”  or would he curl up his face and say we could do better?

I really have often wondered this.  If he walked our halls, sat in our classrooms, watched our games and listened to our conversations,  how would he evaluate us? 

Evaluating schools is an issue that Sacramento, Districts and communities kick around all the time, asking and wondering by what standard do you judge a school?  What is the benchmark of excellence? This too, is good and right.

In 2007 I took our cross country teams to Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama to compete and also to see the sites in those cities made famous by Dr. King, Rosa Parks and others.  That experience captured my imagination not only of the past, but my hope for the present as well.  For 11 years now, I’ve been on a quest to understand Dr. King at a deeper level. Despite dozens of books read, I am not done, but this one thing I know: However complex King was, no matter how nuanced and layered his perspective on Civil Rights was, his life really can be reduced down to one thing, and I think that one thing is what he’d use to evaluate our school … If he walked our halls … if he listened to our conversations … if he sat and ate lunch with us.

In early 1956 as the Montgomery Bus Boycott was just getting on, Martin Luther King was worn down by weeks of death threats and admitted that he was nearing the end of his strength right there at the start of the battle. Unable to sleep, he made a pot of coffee and sat at his kitchen table in the middle of the night frightened, lonely, tired...  Later he would write about what happened:

The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. He wrote. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. … I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."

At that moment, I experienced the presence of [God like never before]. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."

One thing we try to emphasize with our students is that their lives matter.  Each one, created in the Imago Dei, we greet on the doorstep of adulthood and try to usher them into maturity, equipped for the one life they get to live.  What will that one life look like?  What will be the pillars of belief and conviction upon which their lives will stand?  If Dr. King were here … how would he answer that question? What would he say his life was about if he spent time on this campus and … walked our halls, listened to our conversations, and sat down to eat lunch with us. What would he say?

It was just days after that moment at midnight there in his kitchen that a bomb with murderous intent exploded on the front porch of his home leaving a gaping hole and broken windows in its wake. While no one was hurt, everyone was angry. Police arrived and a barricade kept at bay a swirling crowd fixed on revenge. 

King stepped out onto the porch and into the jangling discord, saying: “We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. Remember the words of Jesus, ‘He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.’ No matter what they do to us, we must make them know that we love them. Jesus’ words echo across the centuries, “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that spitefully use you.’ This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love.”

Today in South Africa, they are familiar with a Bantu word.  That word is Ubuntu. It comes from a saying that essentially says,  “A person is a person through other persons.” Ubuntu declares that we are not alone, that we are designed to connect with others, that Mankind is better off when we live in community with one another. The great South African leader, Nelson Mandela spoke of Ubuntu and practiced it.  Mandela described it this way: Ubuntu does not mean people should not address themselves, but the bigger question is this: Are you going to live in such a way that enables the community around you to improve?

In 1956, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott had been successfully completed, King spoke of what he called a Beloved Community and it resonates with Ubuntu.  “The end is redemption;” he said of the budding civil rights movement.  “the end is the creation of the beloved community.  It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers [sic] into friends. It is this type of understanding that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

What if he walked these halls, listened to our conversations, and sat to eat lunch with us?  What if Dr. King were alive and here today?  We might ask him many things about his views on civil rights, but really, I think he’d ask us just one question:

How well are you doing at loving one another?

You see, King had just one life, as do you and I.  He lived it well. He lived it with purpose, even if it took an encounter with God at his kitchen table to bring him to it.  But say what you want to say about that one life, his life really came down to one thing … love. From the Rock of Love flowed the rivers of justice, equality and reconciliation. The light of love, King argued, would dispel the dark shadows of hatred.

It’s been almost 19 years since we first opened these doors and on a day like today, it’s good to consider again the singular call King gave to each and every one of us.  A celebration like today should force us to reflect and ask ourselves how well we are living our one life, both as members of the King High School community and as Americans.

How well are we doing at loving one another? Do we love the camouflaged kid as much as we do the AP scholar with a 4.0?  Do the down and outers get loved as much as the up and comers?  Do we love those to the Left of us and to the Right?

Do we hear the echoes of Dr. King as we walk these halls?  He’s calling us!  Love each other! Love even your enemies.  Sacrifice for others. Live in community, seek ways to improve the community around you.

50 years ago this April, Martin Luther King’s life tragically ended too early, his Beloved Community not yet realized.  A half century later, there is much to be done both here, and in the country he loved.  But while Ubuntu, American style, may still be a way off, and while there’s still a mountain to climb, this fact should not deter us from striving on toward that distant land. 

May our resolve be strengthened.

May we not be distracted or fearful.

May our eyes be fixed and hearts convicted.

And every time we see this mural, may we be reminded of that call of Dr. King’s that our one life is best lived when it’s lived in service and love toward those we are inextricably bound together with.

If and when that day comes, on that day … if we could imagine Dr King walking these halls, listening to our conversations and sitting down to eat lunch with us, then I’m sure he’d say,

Well done!