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Occasion: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

SHE WAS A DAY LABORER, working 10 hours at a factory and spending another two on the bus to and from work. All she wanted was to read and write well enough to fill out a job application so she could get a full-time job with a company that offered benefits. It was a simple goal, made difficult by the fact that she was 55, her eyesight was failing, and her mind and memory weren’t as sharp as they used to be. But she persevered. Working with a tutor every Tuesday and Thursday, she struggled to memorize the alphabet and sound out words.

School had not been a priority when she was growing up in Mississippi during the 1940s. Her parents were sharecroppers, and they needed every able body to work the fields. After her mother was struck by lightning—an apparent hazard of the job—she and a sister made their way to Chicago to find work. “I was lucky to make it out of Mississippi alive. Those were terrible times.” Of course, Chicago wasn’t much better during the turbulent ’60s. Race riots scarred her new neighborhood, and poverty sucked the life out of the community. “Even during the worst of times, I never failed to vote,” she said. ”People much braver than I am risked their lives so I could have this privilege.”

She progressed in her studies and was soon keeping a journal and writing essays about her life. After a year, she mustered the courage to apply for a full-time job at the factory. Her hand shook as she read all the questions on the application and wrote out her answers.

She received word a day later that she got the job. She called her tutor and said, “I did it. I accomplished my dream!” At the next session, her tutor gave her a slim volume of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tears welled in the woman’s eyes as she turned to King’s “I have a dream” speech and realized she was able to read every word.

TODAY THE UNITED STATES HONORS the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose grand dreams of peace and equality, though not fully realized, continue to take root in the simple dreams of everyday people and plant the seeds of reform and renewal. Like today’s gospel, King’s legacy is about seeing the world in a different way and reshaping our perceptions and actions. New wine needs new wineskins, Jesus said and King heard. Thus, King imagined a world not just free of racial discord, but free from war, poverty, and injustice of any kind. And true to his Christian roots, he believed that the fight for these freedoms had to be nonviolent. “I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself,” King announced to his enemies. “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”

King imagined a world not just free of racial discord, but free from war, poverty, and injustice of any kind.

These are words we ignore at our own peril. If we choose violence over conciliation, hate over love, we will be rewarded with feelings of paranoia and alienation. Every misunderstanding becomes reason for mistrust and resentment; every slight becomes reason for war. A heart filled with hate knows no joy. Like new cloth sewn into an old cloak, the heart of hate can’t bear the fullness of joy. It pulls and tears till it feels nothing.

SO JESUS AND KING in his footsteps urge us to love our enemies, no matter how deep the divide, no matter how bitter the struggle. We all have enemies. Who are yours? Take a moment to picture and name them—it could be our national enemies whom we send troops to fight, or a coworker who wishes you ill; perhaps it’s a family member or friend who betrayed or abused you, or a neighbor whose political or religious views are abhorrent to you; maybe it’s some thug who robbed you, or a loathsome bully who threatened someone you care for.

Can you love these people now or continue to love them even as their detestable acts and hatred toward you grows? Yes, answered Jesus; yes, answered Gandhi; yes, answered King. What will your answer be?

“Love,” King said, “is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” Begin to win new friends today by looking at your enemies as people who need your love, even as you work to understand them or change their unjust and immoral behavior. Remember, braver ones than you or I died that we might live in love.