Dear Caldwell,
About 90 people gathered here at noon for a joint Presbyterian Hospital-Caldwell service of worship in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is a service that has been held annually at the hospital for years. We were delighted to be asked to host. Our choir, as always, impressed folks with their joy, energy and conviction. An ethnically diverse group of hospital employees read a provocative poem (I will post a video of that when I receive it) and Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, an ordained Baptist pastor, medical doctor and hospital executive, delivered a power message.
In her meditation, Dr. Garmon-Brown, a friend and former seminary classmate, read a stirring portion of an MLK speech delivered in Atlanta to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967. King encouraged what he called “divine dissatisfaction” with where America was then in relation to equality and justice. Unfortunately, even though 35 years have passed, there is still work to be done, as President Obama said in his second inaugural address today.
Surely, as people of God, we are called to continue to work for the day when King’s dream is fulfilled, animated, as I said yesterday, by both urgency and joy in doing the work Christ began. In that spirit, let us hold on to the ‘divine dissatisfaction” that King encouraged and our Lord commands. Here are some of King’s words on that from his ’67 speech “Where do we go from here?”:
So, I conclude by saying again today that we have a task and let us go out with a “divine dissatisfaction.” Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. [,et us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home. Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality, integrated education. Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity. Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character and not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God. Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied. And men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout “White Power!” – when nobody will shout “Black Power!” – but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.