MLK on Mutuality

Mutuality is a term that keeps cropping up in my life.  It reflects a way of being and acting in mutual relationship with one another, responding in love and refusing to repeat the patterns of oppression, hate and violence in society.

Last year I ran across a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. on mutuality.  It comes from Strength to Love written in 1963.  I put a shorter version of the quote on the picture.  Here is the longer quote.

In a real sense, all life is interrelated.  All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

I remember reading once that Martin Luther King was able to do everything he did for our human community because he faithfully gave the first hour of each day to God.  He was certainly a holy man committed to love and justice.  May his courageous and faithful response to the message of Jesus continue to inspire us and future generations.