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Setting the Moral Compass

January 19, 2003

We often talk about life as a journey, and we talk about the freedom to decide which road to take, as in Robert Frost's well-known and well-worn lines about the road not taken. The poem begins, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood..."

The narrator of the poem makes a choicehe takes the one less traveled by, and concludes, 'and that has made all the difference.'

If life is a journey, then we need to learn what to take with us, what to pack in the knapsack, and we have to learn how to find our way.

We're here to think about the inner journey, the spiritual aspect of our lives, and to think together about setting a courseto think about where we are headed as individuals, as a congregation or community, and as a nation.

From time to time, on a journey, you have to stop to check the map, to see where you are, and to set the compass for the next steps.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. urged us to take a closer look at the landscapeespecially as it relates to what he called 'the triple threat' of militarism, racism and poverty that prevents us from becoming the nation that was promised in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

We would have to have blinders on to avoid seeing that triple threat at this place along our shared journey: the militarism of our time threatens to turn us into the kind of nation from which the founders of this country rebelled: an imperialistic power colonizing and dominating the world.

We would have to have very effective blinders on to avoid seeing the residual of racism about which Trent Lott recently reminded us...a racism that is less overt than it was under Jim Crow, but no less insidious.

We would have to have a big blinder on to avoid seeing the poverty that prevents so many of our children from an opportunity to share in the American Dream.

Militarism is a remnant of the long road we've traveled. It brought us freedom from the domination of Great Britain, it brought an end to the pernicious practice of slavery, and in more recent history it brought an end to the savagery of Nazi Germany under Hitler.

The problem is that militarism has become a mindset and is seen as a solution to the world's problems.

Violence breeds violence; if we live by the sword we are sure to die by the sword.

Sandburg's poem, which he titled Grass reminds us:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo
Shovel them under and let me work
        I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun, Stalingrad.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
        What place is this?
        Where are we now?

        I am the grass.
        Let me work.

We do well to stop today and ask, 'What place is this, where are we, now?' Where are you headed? Where's the compass?

Where were you on August 28, 1963? Where were you on April 4, 1968?

I want to tell you where I was, to locate myself, and maybe you'll do the samelocate yourself on the map: where are we on the moral journey we're sharing? Where do we hope to go, together?

A member of this congregation recently said to me, "I'm not a social activist." He was thoughtfully and honestly questioning his life journey; he was thoughtfully and honestly asking himself and asking me if this church, this approach to life, religion, morality and spirituality is right for him. His observation is that everybody else here is a social activist; the implication is that being a social activist is somehow required here, like a creedal test.

I own a pretty good compass--I've done some wilderness hiking. But, truth be told, I've never really used a compass to find my way. On my wilderness trips we always had a guide. Tom, our guide and outfitter, never got lost. He got confused a few times, when we took the horses off the trail and explored new territory; but he never got lost.

I remember one time in particular; I can see Tom sitting on his horse, tilting his head a certain way, looking at a map and holding a compass, then looking up, then moving slowly, like someone not sure of the way; then finding a stream and nodding his head. Without saying a word I knew he had found the way.

It's interesting: the needle on the compass pivots until it aligns with the magnetic field of the earth.

The moral compass must be aligned with a magnetism of a different kindit must line up with what is right, what is just, what is good. Without a moral compass we are driven by base survival instincts.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was like our guide, Tom, except King stood in a pulpit, and on August 28, 1963 he stood on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial, and he asked us to take a good look at where we were so we could set the moral compass to direct us into the future.

On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his 'I have a dream' speech. How I wish I had been there, so I could tell you about it.

I wasn't there. I was at home with my three-week old daughter Susan, for whom I was converting a small porch on our little house into a bedroom.

It was the day before my 23rd birthday, and I was getting ready to begin my first year of teaching at Wellesley High School, having taught for one year at Tewksbury High, in the town where our little house was located.

The job at Wellesley was definitely a step up for me; I would have smaller classes and instead of teaching six classes a day I'd teach four, and nearly all of the students at Wellesley High School were preparing for further education beyond high school, which makes for a good teaching environment.

Now here's the point: we're all involved with our personal lives, immersed in it, with basic needs and demandswe need to survive. A lot of what we do in life has to do with those basic survival instincts. We need a sense of security, and in our culture today we get security by accumulating money, wealth. Money is power.

We have social needs and psychological needs, and spiritual needs. I'm reminded of Abe Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you remember Maslow's pyramid which he used to illustrate human needs?

At the bottom or base of his pyramid is physiological needs: the need for food, clothes, and shelter. The next step up the pyramid is our need for safetyprotection from physical and emotional harm.

The next step up the pyramid is our social needsthe need for affection, acceptancethe need for friendship, the need to belong. Then there's our need for self-esteem, what Maslow called our ego needsthe need to do things to gain recognition, the need for achievement. These are basic to every person's life.

Finally, at the peak of the pyramid, is our need for what Maslow called self-actualizationdoing what brings deep meaning, purpose and direction in life. This is illustrated by Moses's experience at the burning bush or Paul's conversion experience.

Clergy folks, for example, talk about their 'calling.' Maslow suggested that every person needs this sense of fulfillment.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs helps us to locate in a way that seems necessary if we are to locate ourselves with the moral compass.

As I look back over the moral landscape of my life, and of our shared lives, I somehow regret that I wasn't there with Martin on August 28, 1963 when he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, from the depth of his soul, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I wish I had been there, but I wasn't there; I wasn't in Washington, D.C. and I wasn't a social activist, and I wasn't conscious...I wasn't awake...I didn't see the moral landscape. I was at the bottom of the pyramid, in more ways than one.

Four years and seven months later, on April 5, 1968, I was in a different place. I remember that night; I was driving home from a teacher's meeting, driving to the third house I had owneda pretty little house in Wellesley Hills; I was driving a Mercedes (an old, very used Mercedes, but it still served a status symbol, moving me up Maslow's ladder) and on the radio I heard the news that Martin Luther King had been killed by an assassin's bullet. I was stunned.

I was in a different place than I had been when Martin gave his I-have-a-dream speech. I had become heavily involved with the Unitarian Church in Wellesley, I was waking up.

A year later I would re-set my moral compass, and I would leave teaching, sell the house in Wellesley Hills and use the equity to help pay for seminary so I could stand in this pulpit today and preach against the triple threat to our nation's soul: militarism, racism, and poverty; and preach against the prejudices that have fueled the fires of hatred in our nation, and preach against the things that are turning this nation into the kind of imperialistic empire we have deplored from the start of this nation's long journey.

We're here together to set the moral compass, to open our collective eyes and look closely...to see where we are, to determine where we will go together.

Each year we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and we would do well to remind ourselves what he stood for, when he stood on those steps, what he dreamed, so that his dream can 'be ours to do.'

It's time to take another look at the moral landscape of our time, to get out the map, to see where we are, now, and to set the moral compass, as individuals, as a congregation, and as a nation.

Let me say this: I've realized my personal dream. I've been to the top of the pyramid, and I feel extremely grateful for thatI am grateful to this country, my country, for the opportunities given to me in this great country; I feel privileged.

Yet, at the same time I feel privileged, I feel an ever-increasing sense of responsibility to help move us closer to keeping the promise that we hold dear, the dream which has been denied to so many.

Last year we established an Eliminating Racism Support Group, under the dedicated leadership of Dan Iacovella. The plan, now, is to work together to find ways to contribute to the elimination of racism: we have a dream! We have to have faith in that dream, and with Martin we can say:

"With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last!"

(Full text of King's speech is below)

I have a Dream, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

 

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