|
Our individual attitudes are vital. In the changes to be brought
about, here in the District of Columbia as much as anywhere, the
part that each of us will play will be a part of what is good or bad
in the total situation. And here we have to make—each of us, as
individuals, I mean—a personal decision. I was thinking of this
requirement near the end of last week when I chanced to take up from
my desk a printed copy of an address by Dr. Murray D. Lincoln, the
President of CARE, which has done so much for overseas relief, much
of it through individuals. We are all of us, says Dr. Lincoln, a
part of the world crisis, and we all have responsibility. And then
he says this: “We must answer the question, ‘Am I a part of the
problem or part of the solution?’”
I can think of no better way of putting what must be for each of us
an individual decision. Certainly, that is the question to be
answered first. “Am I part of the problem?” I may deplore the
problem but do my views, my attitude, the things I say, the tensions
I allow myself to feel, yes—even my prejudices—do these make me part
of the problem: the problem that other people are working hard to
solve? If they do, must I not ask myself whether I am not being
foolish and unworthy? Since the problem is here and attempts must be
made to meet it, of what use is my attitude, my opposition, my
refractoriness? And is it something that can give my self-respect?
Am I part of the problem?
It is a very searching question, isn’t it? The kind that it is not
easy to forget. And I hope that you will not forget it; I hope it
will keep recurring to you over and over again. I hope it will worry
you, and although I don’t like to see people suffer, I hope it will
upset you if necessary until you do something that puts you on the
right side. “Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?
To be part of the solution, you must be willing to do all you can to
help. In this area, in the period immediately before us, this will
be, not something vague and general, but definite, palpable things.
I said earlier that we are in a race between morality and disaster.
You must not think of this as rhetoric. It is literally true. Only
as the moral level rises-the level of justice and benevolence, truth
snd righteousness—can we be the people who will have the vision, the
purpose and the resolution to survive. Yes, and only as we reach
this level can we come towards national unity. You cannot unite a
nation upon the basis of mistrust and bitterness, suspicion and
prejudice. A low moral level means dissension and disunity, which in
turn, mean catastrophe. Moreover, at a low moral level, we shall not
do what is needed in the world, and the situation will go against
us.
That is what I mean by a race between morality and disaster. And we
do, each of us have something to do with whether this race is won or
lost. I think we have something to do with it when we define our
attitude with it when we speak and we act.
That, after all, is the thing that is decisive. I have always been
impressed by the story of the young man who came to Jesus to have a
discussion—academic, he hoped—of the vexed question as to who was
his neighbor. It was a question much canvassed at the time, and one
to which was given a great variety of theoretical answers. “I know I
should love my neighbor as myself,” said the young man, “but my
trouble is one of definition: who is my neighbor?”
And you will remember that Jesus told him the story of the Good
Samaritan, and then made him decide which of the three, the priest,
the levite, or the despised Samaritan was a true neighbor to the man
who had been robbed, and lay by the side of the road. The young man,
no matter how he felt about this story, seems to have made a prompt
decision. The Samaritan, he said, was quite clearly the good
neighbor. And then Jesus, for whom theory had only limited charm,
greatly surprised the young man. “Go,” said Jesus, “and do though
likewise.”
And the command still remains. As it always will until we
acknowledge from our hearts that there is only one race—the human
race—and that the neighbors of each of us are all of us, everywhere
throughout the world.
|
