Essays from West of 98: Better
As I’ve written before, I’ve made it my personal custom to spend some time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day reading from Dr. King’s April 16, 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In my estimation, it’s one of the most important, impactful pieces of writing about transforming a society for good. The brilliance of the words are made even more powerful by the author being jailed in the pursuit of good, at the time it was written.
(As an aside, it sounds shocking that such powerful writing was done by an imprisoned author, until you think of all the world-changing literature that came from prison: King, Mandela, Bonhoeffer, John Bunyan, and the Apostle Paul, to name a few. I’d not wish the same experience on any of us, but there’s a lesson here on finding the focus to achieve complete mental clarity, no matter your surrounding circumstances. But I digress.)
In a past essay, I wrote of Dr. King challenging the Christian church to be a thermostat that changes the temperature of the surrounding culture, not a mere thermometer that recorded the popular ideas around it. It’s a powerful analogy that rang stunningly true in 1963, when Christian leaders had the audacity to tell Dr. King to calm down and be patient. It was still incredibly applicable in 2019 when I penned that essay and it remains even moreso in 2021. As I was thinking of that analogy, I saw some words on Twitter from my friend Ruben Villarreal. Ruben is a past mayor of Rio Grande City, Texas, executive director of the LaJoya Housing Authority, and an advocate for the people of the Rio Grande Valley and border-related issues. He’s a community-oriented thinker and I always respect his opinions. Ruben wrote that Dr. King’s quotes are everywhere, but his legacy can be more difficult to see. He wrote that Dr. King “challenged a generation to be better volunteers, better neighbors, better servants of God, and better Americans. On this day let us work through our flaws to find the meaning of his profound words.”
Ruben captures the heart of Dr. King’s instruction on being a thermostat rather than a thermometer. Dr. King wrote that early Christians rejoiced at “being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed.” He rightly noted that when early Christians arrived in a town, local leaders charged them as “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators” (both such epithets were used against Dr. King’s civil rights advocacy in the South). Yet, those Christians were unwavering, convicted to obey God rather than the threats of men. They did not defend the status quo or give comfort to the powerful who were unworthy of such. Dr. King pointed out that those early Christians were instrumental in ending hideous ancient cultural traditions like infanticide and gladiator contests. Later on, Christians were instrumental in stopping the Atlantic slave trade and led the charge to abolish American slavery. In short, each of these groups were focused on being better servants of God and bettering the world around them.
So, today, as 2021 unfolds, I challenge each of us to heed my friend Ruben’s words. Each of us are flawed humans. We have regrets. We make mistakes. Let us work through those flaws, learn from our experiences, and be better volunteers, better neighbors, better servants of God, and better Americans. When we do that, we will truly improve our communities and the surrounding world, as the thermostats that we’re called to be.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the “West of 98” website and forthcoming podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com.