Standing up in war

I remember a time when I was very young, around 7 years old.  My brother was only about 4.  We were watching TV with my dad one evening.  It was M*A*S*H, one of my favorites. During heavy shelling, Hawkeye and another doctor were called away to assist near the front line.  At one point, while everyone was taking shelter in bunkers and foxholes, a young soldier stood up to make a run for it.  Upon rising up into the line of sight, he was shot.  Thankfully M*A*S*H was not an ultra-realistic drama.  The soldier spun around and landed on the ground with a thud.  My brother, not quite school-aged, turned to my dad, eyes wide, and declared with his most serious voice, "NEVER stand up in a war!"

Even at the tender age of 4, my baby brother understood that standing up in times of intense hostility would result in becoming a target, and it was possible that everything, even your very life, could be lost.  If you want to stay alive, lay low, keep from getting noticed and making waves, and whatever you do... NEVER stand up in a war.

Today is MLK Day.  I was tempted at first to find some of the excerpts from my favorite speeches.  Dr. King was a phenomenal writer, and very inspirational.  But as I started sifting through and organizing my thoughts and sequencing the quotes and excerpts, I began to ponder the content.  What on earth would make a man say these things?

Consider the climate of the day.  Temperatures are running hot in the deep south, and tensions were on the rise as more and more black folks were coming to realize that the law, and society as a whole, was failing them.  They were discredited, discounted, and dissatisfied.  But white folks in the south had all the power, and all the money, and politically united to forget about the underpaid, underserved, and undervalued African-American minority.  Segregation was more of a nuisance in comparison to the political barricades a person of color would face when wanting to consider college, buying a home, or applying for work.  When things finally reached a boiling point, blacks were willing to face imprisonment, physical abuse, and in some cases even their lives to prove a point to lawmakers.

Dr. King believed firmly that blacks in America had not just earned the privilege of being treated with respect, but deserved the God-given right to things like walking down the street without fear of taking a bullet, sending their children to school without lynching, and worshipping in their church of choice without fear of being blown to bits.  He wasn't asking for treatment that was better than what white Americans were enjoying.  He wanted equality.  But he wasn't willing to compromise his integrity to get it.  He believed that doing things right was the way to prove to white lawmakers that blacks were capable of functioning in white society.  And he preached non-violent resistance.  The stakes were high, the war was on, and he was standing up.

Beautiful, his speeches are.  And reading them is like stepping back in time.  They preserve history, they reflect an inner meditation, and they are a call to action.  But these speeches are also a giant target on the back of their author.  Dr. King paid dearly for his writings and his beliefs.  He stood up in a war.

There are a multitude of things one can take away from the life, and death, of Dr. King.  But this one thing stands out to me: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Stand up.