With this month’s theme of repair, renewal, and resilience, one of the most inspiring people that dedicated his life to repairing the racial rifts in the U.S., is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was brilliant, fallible, humble, courageous, flawed, and a human deeply committed to making the U.S. and the world a better place for Black folks to live and thrive.

This weekend, we’ll honor his life by focusing on justice, equity, creativity, and interdependence. We will choose to not give our energy to the news or the event of the inauguration, except perhaps if Heather Cox Richardson speaks about it later. Why focus on evil? We know he’ll lie. We know other people will say things to marginalize people of color, immigrants from certain countries,

Many of King’s best quotes are truncated and simplified but they all had a larger context in which they were spoken or written. In a commencement address at Morehouse College, likely in 1959, titled Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, he wrote, “First, we are challenged to rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The individual or nation that feels that it can live in isolation has allowed itself to sleep through a revolution. The geographical togetherness of the modern world makes our very existence dependent on co-existence. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. Because of our involvement in humanity we must be concerned about every human being.”

Interdependence is a deeply held value in Unitarian Universalism. We are most certainly going to need one another to make it through these tenuous times. There are lots of activities, concerts, brunches, events, and opportunities for service in the greater Capital Region to honor King’s life and legacy. May you find one or several that help inspire you to stay connected to your faith community and our shared values.

-Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn