January 20, 2025 — Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January 20, 2025

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I have a rudimentary understanding of what Carl Jung called our “shadow”—that part of ourselves, that energy within that we judge, deny, and repress. I also understand that Shadow, as profoundly individual and personal as it may be for each of us, has its strongest hold on us when we subconsciously recognize it in others and project all of our self-loathing onto that other person or group and treat them with spite, vengeance, and disgust. To take that route, it is, ultimately, to diminish, or even destroy, ourselves.

I’m struggling with Shadow today. Struggling furiously. It has me by the throat. It makes me want to scream. To get “even.” (What would that even look like?) I don’t want today to be real, but it is. So, how am I to live into the coming four (or, God help us, more) years ahead?

By gracious coincidence, today is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And if anyone in recent memory demonstrated faith, hope, and love in the face of abuse, tyranny, and violence, it was Dr. King. He reminds us that the worst of ourselves is never our whole selves. And if that’s true for me, then it is also true for those who mirror back to me my own shadow energy—even the deepest most shameful aspects of my shadow.

So, if I am to love my neighbor as myself, that is, if I am to love my neighbor in such a way as to love the me I see in him/her—even when all I see is my own, shadow-shocked self—mustn’t I find some way to love that person/group, and thus myself, toward wholeness, toward justice, toward peace? Isn’t that the love both Jesus and Dr. King taught and lived?

On August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to a crowd of nearly 250,000 people crammed onto the National Mall, Dr. King delivered his still-relevant I Have a Dream speech. Within that memorable address he said:

“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 make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment…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 a 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 they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. 

“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

“We cannot turn back.”*

Specifically, Dr. King’s speech addressed racism and the ongoing injustice of segregation. For me, in the urgent Now of January 2025, King’s words continue to speak to the fundamental nature of a democracy, to the call to justice, and to the basic human rights which ALL human beings deserve. I believe that, in our current global context, democracy, justice, and human rights, not to mention simple human decency, face monumental challenges. While hardly new, these challenges have been reinvigorated. And with the decline of civility and reverence for truth, and with rise of the manipulative power of an unfiltered social media, it will be harder than ever to cross today’s equivalent of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and face the powers that be with a justice-seeking love that is as fearless and determined as it is compassionate and hopeful.

I wish I had concrete answers about how to move forward. God knows I need answers myself. However you and I may manifest what Dr. King called a “marvelous new militancy,” may we all be guided by the “soul force” ways of Jesus—ways that build toward a new future, a future grounded in risk-taking trust, one-on-one, Shadow-taming relationship with neighbor, wonder-soaked love of the Earth, liberating and transforming forgiveness, fresh thanksgiving, relentless hope, and, because struggle is inevitable, and because there is no true joy for one until there is true joy for all, conflict that is as non-violent as it is unyielding.

And may we start now.

*https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm