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Today the Episcopal Church celebrates the Feast of Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights Leader, 1968.

[T]here are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted, and to which I call all [those] of good will to be maladjusted until the good society is realized. I must confess that I will never adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I will never become adjusted to religious bigotry. I will never adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many and give luxuries to the few. I will never become adjusted to the madness? of militarism: the self-defeating effects of physical violence. … There is a need for men and women to be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. In his day, in the midst of injustices, his proud words echo across the centuries, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." There is a need for men and women today to be as maladjusted? as Abraham Lincoln, who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half-slave and half-free, … to be as maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth, who could stand amid the men and women of his day, amid the intricacies of the formidable military machinery of the Roman Empire, to say, "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword," and cry out, "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Through such maladjustment, we will be able to emerge from the darkened midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

Martin Luther King Jr., May 13, 1963, St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights, Oh. (source)

Labels: Martin Luther King Jr., violence