Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

This morning I read on Yahoo News that although everybody knows that Martin Luther King, Jr. made the famous “I have a dream” speech, that’s all that most of us know about this mythological man whose birthday we’re celebrating today. We don’t even know what his dream was.

When I first began writing my book, Let Go, Let Miracles Happen, I didn’t know any more than the average person about MLK. Then, while doing research for the book, I came across a wonderful collection of his sermons—Strength to Love. Wow! In the truest sense of the word, Wow! This is one of the most brilliant, loving, inspired, powerful books I have ever read.

In honor of this day and this great, great man, I offer the following story (that I included in Let Go) that illustrates the power of surrendering our problems, continuing to act on the solution, and letting go of our specific idea of what that solution should be:

When Dr. King was leading the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, they set up a car pool to help people get around. The car pool operated without problem for eleven months, but then, the mayor of Montgomery had had enough. He instructed the city’s leading department to file proceedings making the car pool—or any other mode of transportation in support of the boycott—illegal. A hearing was set to decide the matter.

Dr. King tells how he dreaded telling supporters the news that the car pools would probably be closed down. This meant that they had only two choices: Either they would all have to walk to work, or take the buses again and admit that the boycott had failed.

“When the evening (before the hearing) came,” writes Dr. King, “I mustered sufficient courage to tell them the truth. I tried, however, to conclude on a note of hope. ‘We have moved all of these months,’ I said, ‘in the daring faith that God is with us in our struggle. The many experiences of days gone by have vindicated that faith in a marvelous way. Tonight we must believe that a way will be made out of no way.’”

The next day, the hearing did not go well, and it looked like Dr. King and his supporters would lose, and the carpools would be outlawed. All seemed hopeless. Then, an amazing thing happened. At a brief recess, there was a commotion in the courtroom, and a reporter handed Dr. King the news, “The United States Supreme Court today unanimously ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in Montgomery, Alabama.” Someone shouted from the back of the courtroom, “God Almighty has spoken from Washington!”

It’s a good thing that Dr. King didn’t pray to keep the car pool. God had a much better way of solving his problem!

This story still gives me chills when I read it. May we all celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. today by living his dream, (as Coretta Scott King writes) “By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love.”