On Sunday my minister preached on WWMD (What Would Martin Do?) as homage to the bracelets that many Christian youths wore about a decade ago as a reminder to ask themselves, when up against a moral dilemma, what would Jesus do? (WWJD) On the Celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. our minister challenged us to ask, “What would Martin do?”
Because I post on Mondays I have known for a while that I would be posting on this day. I didn’t want it to go by without discussing MLK and his legacy. I began reading his papers: letters, sermons and speeches . . . searching and trying to connect him to this sufficiency movement. I wanted the perfect quote or phrase where he talked about not being enough or not having enough. Although he spoke of these themes many, many times during the civil rights campaign I didn’t come across the perfect pithy statement to blog about.
However, I did discover the same truth with King I did when studying Gandhi—it is not about what they did in their moment of need, it is about who they were being. This is the lesson I continue to learn on my sufficiency journey.
King brought light to injustices, had us examine our moral compass as a nation, and brought voice to the oppressed—dignity to the disaffected. He spoke of economics, interdependency and poverty as well as the deep divide between blacks and whites in this country. All of who King was, and took a stand for can be brought into the conversation for sufficiency:
- What injustices do we cause the planet by taking more resources than we need?
- Where does our moral compass point when we are gripped by scarcity?
- How do we alter the inherent scarcity perpetrated by how we produce, measure and value money?
- How do we march against the system itself, a system that produces the haves and the have not’s?
What if I looked at the current state of our planet and imagined the bracelet I am wearing (given to me by the Achuar people of Ecuador) also had WWMD woven into it?
- WWMD about the genocide is Africa?
- WWMD about the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS?
- WWMD about the escalating war in Afghanistan?
- WWMD about China’s human rights violations?
- WWMD about the homeless sleeping in the streets of our cities?
- WWMD about the delay in providing health care to all?
- WWMD about child sex trafficking and slavery?
- WWMD and say about marriage equality?
I believe that all of what King stood for can be our true North for our sufficiency journey starting now.
- What can I do today to bring voice to the oppressed?
- What can I do today to bring dignity to the abused?
- What “call to conscience” can I answer in this moment?