values

I suppose it’s embarrassingly trite and predictable to love on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in mid-January, to praise him and claim him as a personal hero. But I’m going to do it anyway. Because it’s his birthday and he deserves to be remembered. And I deserve to go back and pour over his precious words, to be reminded that there is a better way, a way of eloquence and love and dignity. We all deserve that.

Reading his (long) Letter from a Brimingham Jail – a letter that far exceeds the word and character count for most social media platforms — made me wonder how MLK would fare in the age of facebook. Would he get an encouraging number of “likes” and “shares”? And if he didn’t, would he post baby animal videos or shout-outs to his favorite lunch spots? Or would he just keep posting deep-thinking-inspirational-call-to-action stuff until all but his most dedicated activist “friends” unfollowed him?

MLK is popular… now. His vision, his character, his carefully chosen words — it’s all stood the test of time. But in 1966 (according to a Gallup poll that year), 63 percent of Americans had a negative view of MLK.

In 2018, mainstream folks gather together around breakfast and luncheon tables set with real silverware and cloth napkins to honor him. University presidents and Chamber of Commerce members and pastors and elected officials — everybody shows up to hear speeches about unity. That’s a good thing. Bring on the speeches about unity. Bring on the quotes about light driving out darkness. Bring on the broad themes of equality and harmony. It’ll feed our hungry souls.

The sweeping concepts are easy: “‘Love,’ why, YES, of course we cheer for ‘love’!!” and “‘Justice,’ who wouldn’t want ‘justice’?”

Then there’s the tricky part. You know, connecting the grand notions to here-and-now policies. Calling on an audience to think through what a modern-day MLK might look like in their own community. What moral demands might he make of us? What, for instance, would be his message to Elkhart County Commissioners as they contemplate a for-profit immigration detention center (that’s a rhetorical question because you already know the answer)?

What would MLK say about granting property tax breaks to highly profitable companies whose CEOs are paid hundreds of times what some of their employees are paid (again, rhetorical)?

If he lived here in Goshen, would he be appointed to our Community Relations Commission? Would he be willing to serve?

Would he run for office? Would he win? I would hope so.

MLK was courage incarnate. He stood up to the most powerful interests in the most powerful country in the world. He showed up and called out injustice and inequity whenever and wherever he saw it — but always with a clear intent to uplift. Never to degrade. Never to debase.

He was resistance and persistence wrapped in grace. And for his elegance and strength… he was criticized, jailed, surveilled and finally killed.

It’ s never been easy to push society towards its best self, to question the status quo, or to stand for the underdog. It will always be challenging and it will always be risky.

As much as anything, MLK lamented the silence of good people in the midst of injustice, and the white “moderate” who valued “order” over justice (the irony of today might be that “order” is slipping through all our fingers, and we may not have as much of it to lose as we imagine).

MLK is a hero not only because he was strong enough to greet violence with nonviolence, but because he was able to withstand Disapproval — to shake its limp hand, see its raised eyebrows and treat it like a gentleman anyway. Because, frankly, most people are more afraid of being socially ostracized than of being punched in the gut.

The truth is, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is hard. I always experience it as a serious lesson in humility, as a reminder of my own human frailty, and of our collective imperfection. It comes around each January like a failed New Year’s resolution (Ugh! AGAIN I didn’t spread compassion and human rights like wildfire!).

So it’s here. The annual reminder that I (and you) have work to do.

The tears caught me off guard. When I told my husband that the proposed federal budget cuts include NeighborWorks… out they came, filling my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.

Does that make me sound weak (that I actually cried)? For a moment I thought it might, but then I changed my mind. I remembered the time one of my mentors shed tears during a speech she gave about nuclear weapons. She scolded herself afterwards, embarrassed that she had unintentionally performed the part of a stereotypical emotional woman. I defended her honor all those years ago, insistent that the problem with our world is not that people cry when talking about nuclear weapons, but that far too many people don’t.

So, yes, I cried when I saw the list of programs that the Whitehouse wants to eliminate. And I’ll probably do it again. There are so many worthwhile programs in peril; this one just happens to feel like a personal friend.

For anyone who doesn’t know, NeighborWorks is a program that helps fund organizations like Goshen’s LaCasa, Inc.

LaCasa pulls money from federal, state, local, and private sources — and adds a whole bunch of volunteers — to accomplish things like putting roofs over people’s heads. Sometimes that means using matched savings accounts for first-time home purchases. Sometimes it means helping homeowners avoid foreclosure; and still other times it means replacing a homeowner’s leaking roof through the Help-a-House program.

All of these individual homeowners are connected to entire neighborhoods; and organizations like LaCasa and NeighborWorks understand that people’s economic destinies are tied to their neighbors.

Here’s where I get choked up: the NeighborWorks Community Leadership Institute. It’s an annual conference that puts 1,000 people who care about their neighbors together in one place for three days. People from all over the nation — people of varying racial, ethnic and cultural groups — attend workshops, comparing successes and challenges from their own neighborhoods.

I need you to know that these conference attendees are some of the most inspirational, good-hearted, justice-seeking people I’ve ever met. People who traded in six-figure incomes for non-profit salaries because they wanted to work with youth in inner cities; people who non-violently took back a public park from drug dealers; people who set up job training centers and after-school programs and the list goes on. Seven years I attended that conference … and seven years I came back home feeling good about the world, about my country, about Goshen.

For over a decade, LaCasa has sent local teams to the conference who then return to launch projects with small NeighborWorks grants earned when they submit a written plan. I first attended as a volunteer for my own neighborhood; and then later, when I was a LaCasa employee, I recruited teams and traveled along with them.

There are too many names to list, but when I hear talk of eliminating the program, I can’t help but think of all the Goshen residents who have tackled projects with NeighborWorks (and LaCasa).

I think of the families that met over the course of several years on a vacant lot at Center and North Eighth streets to dig and plant and harvest vegetables together. I remember the kids who held up worms and yanked out dandelions, kids of varying colors, cultures and ages.

And the mural, I think of the mural, too. The one across the street from Chamberlain Elementary where most of the children qualify for free or reduced lunch. I remember that hot, sticky summer when a local artist let a whole bunch of people in the neighborhood “help” her paint. As we stood sweating in the afternoon sun, passersby honked and waved their approval. We waved back, offering thumbs up and “woo-hoos.” When it was done, everyone who held a brush was proud.

And those Westside Women. After a shooting on their block, several of them decided to organize. We consumed a lot of donuts and coffee on Saturday mornings as they charted a course. Now they lead a thriving neighborhood association.

The dollar amount that flows to Goshen from NeighborWorks and other affordable housing programs is minimal in the grand scheme of things, but the funding is significant to our smallish community — and its economy.

Budgets are so much more than numbers. They are documents that reflect our deepest held values. Surely we can agree that in this community… in this country… tending to our neighbors and neighborhoods makes good sense. Anything less than that should bring a tear to all our eyes.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Budget Cuts: When Numbers Numb Hearts