Refresh Your Resolution

January 19, 2010 Leave a comment

Martin Luther King has been on my mind over the last few days.  I’ve been contemplating his prophetic voice, and how every age needs its prophets.  I’ve been contemplating the relationship between his belief that “the vision of where we’re going is the reality we have to claim,” Joseph Campbell’s work on the power of myth, and @EmergentCulture’s recent tweet proposing that “we need a new myth for our time, a story that will serve us as we encounter a time period unlike any before.”  It is all coming together in ways I’m not fully ready to define.

In light of all this inner grappling, I am also finding myself grateful for having Dr. King’s birthday right in the middle of January, a time when so many of us find ourselves overcome by a spirit of renewal and resolution.  I don’t think there is a better time to remember our calling and our highest aspirations.  There is no better time than right now to remember Rev. King’s words that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” and to remember that we have a place in this story, and I dare call it, a leading role.

As I continue to reflect, and I invite you to move with me, I think it most appropriate to leave you with a prayer from the Rg Veda – one of our humanity’s most ancient scriptures.  Read it and consider that thousands of years ago some enlightened sage said this prayer for you, and she said it with so much power, so much clarity and so much intention, that it still moves us today:

May you awaken like the sun at daybreak,

ready to make your sacred offering.

Set forth with delight, like a pilgrim on his journey.

O heroic one, move forward with resolve

to make this sacred offering of yourself to life.

May you plant the banner of victory

in the service of humankind.

No Comments

  • 1-19-2009 ~
    Hola All ~ I am a follower of Che Rohann @EmergentCulture via Twitter and followed his Tweet to here. The Power of the Internet has changed the whole role of social networking from the local community level and has brought it online via the Internet.

    I made no new New Year’s Resolution this year and am trying to live up to the ones of past years, especially helping others and taking care of my health in different ways.

    To be resolute is to be determined, to be strong and steadfast, not swaying to and fro with each passing doctrine.
    My main resolution is to stay committed to bringing about a democratic socialist revolution in our lifetime.

    Let us not be afraid to reach out to each other, know our own truth and not be afraid to be wrong as we stay open to new ideas and ideals from others. ~Namaste ~Peta-de-Aztlan~

  • Ben Williams says:

    I love the quote from Reverend King — we are truly refreshing our resolutions and our beings to be guarantors of the beautiful vision of a “moral arc.” This Arc is an unimaginably beautiful tapestry that holds all of the just and enlightened acts of every past generation, and which we must give ourselves to for the future!

  • Cynthia Silva Parker says:

    Thanks for sharing this prayer. I am moved by its beauty and reminded of my own commitment to “plant the banner of victory in the service of humankind.” It reminds me of a passage in the Bible that calls us to “be transformed… [and] to “present our bodies as living sacrifices.” We are not judged by whether we succeed in bringing justice fully into being, but we are accountable for doing all we can to participate in bending the arc.
    Blessings!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *