These words of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., first reached me in the autumn of my opening semester at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. One afternoon, as I was dutifully at my homework, a paragraph lept off the page from his book of sermons, Strength to Love.
And now, today, I can quickly find, highlighted in yellow by my twenty-one year old hand, this daring passage: "I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive (people) of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence. Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
When I arrived at those words, my heart said Yes. The Spirit spoke to my deepest being. From then on, whenever I came across the words "love" or "mercy" in the pages of the gospels, I would hear them in light of Dr. King's prophetic stand. And whenever it seemed easier to fit in and keep silent, I renewed my courage by remembering his words. To be "creatively maladjusted" is to be part of God's work of "salvation"? Sign me up all over again. Today I am more thankful than ever for this healing and liberating call.
These words from Dr. King's book, Strength to Love, appear in his sermon, "Transformed Nonconformist," where his scriptural text for the day was "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."