Recovering King’s legacy also means confronting our own complicity in systems of injustice. King’s critique of the “white moderate”— those more devoted to order than justice — remains painfully relevant.
As we consider how to best serve those around us, going alcohol-free may well be one of the most profound gestures of hospitality we can make. Rather than asking people to fit themselves around established norms, we build events that are genuinely welcoming for all.
I have been imagining this Advent as a time during which I will hold my breath for a season. But I do not want to just hold my breath. I’d prefer to breathe. So I’m investing some time now asking myself a very basic question: how do I want to live while the unknown is coming? I cannot control the weather, but I can weather it.
Gather the books that are feeding your soul, the ones that make you think or laugh or cry. Share them with friends, online or in person. Reading is a communal activity as much as it is a solitary one, and there’s so much joy to be found in the shared love of a good story.
Clearly the massacre in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919 had a racial component, one for which all of us should repent and work for reparations. But Elaine, and Memphis, and so many other moments in our history, are also and just as much about the violent repression of workers as they are about race.