Three Days Before the Shooting ... (145 page)

Brothers and sisters, it was a MAGNIFICENT tree! Tall with widespread branches, and so bleached by the sun and so warped by the weather that it gleamed in the air like a candelabra of silver. Spring had sprung and the fields on hillsides were bright green with promise; but then, rolling closer, we entered a stench and saw that the river was filled with the carcasses of animals. Hogs and horses, cows and pigs, all floating belly-up in the swirl of the current. And then, hardly before we could react to this bloated evidence of natural disaster, we looked skyward and saw that the tall magnificent tree before us was covered trunk, branch, and tips of limbs with snakes! And POISONOUS snakes they were!

Snakes were EVERYWHERE! Black snakes and copperheads, diamondbacks and moccasins! So many snakes were clinging to that towering tree that we stopped the cars and watched them coiling and wiggling and flicking their tongues as though they were testing God’s radiant sunlight for some unnameable danger. And suddenly before our awe-stricken eyes that familiar object of nature became a gnarled elderly white-haired woman, who wore snakes for a wig and more snakes for her shawl!

It was and it wasn’t. It was both dead and alive. An optical illusion yet one that was alive with deadly potential. And so before our disoriented eyes the real, the natural, had become an illusion, and the illusion a thing of natural and unnatural terror!

Thank God that we rolled on rubber! Thank the Lord that no sparkplug misfired nor car engine sputtered as we rolled away gazing backwards! …

… Yes, Hickman, and thank the Lord that for once you were stone-cold sober, in your right mind, and able to drive that half-paid-for Dodge through all that muddy, floorboard-deep water! …

… Beat it, Buster!—Oh, yes, my friends, we live in a bisected double-world, one part fairly small and the other so large and complicated that it can seem foggy-formless. And while we can control the smaller world to a limited extent, the other is in the hands of folks who try to act as though there’s no possible connection between us and them. Therefore, when something from their larger world enters the life of someone like our sister Janey, everything gets charged to the breaking point with uncertainty
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And that, my friends, is because in a certain sense this country is an unsteady contraption of wheels within wheels, or gears within gears, and the problem arises because too few of its gears are truly meshing. Therefore instead of running smoothly, and under the attention of wise and perceptive attendants, great worlds of energy are wasted in denying the connections that do exist, and must exist, between them
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And they DO exist, even here on this bus. So whenever something happens to make us aware that the gears are slipping, our world starts to banging away within the larger world like a locomotive stored deep in the hold of a seagoing ship that has broken loose from its moorings. And that’s when that larger world finds that it can’t zig for zagging. And then its gyroscope spins backwards and the entire country starts to wobble and shake on its axis. And while the big men up on the ship’s bridge might or might not know what’s happening, we down in the hold are filled with anxiety. That’s when we sense all kinds of dangerous possibilities and life becomes a matter of living in the dark, or perhaps it’s like being crazy—paranoid, I think is its fancy name. Then everything seems to become either all Black or all White, even though the real world remains as gray as it always was. And that’s exactly the time to remind ourselves that Ezekiel saw the WHEEL! And that while the big wheel ever has trouble turning according to Constitutional law, the little wheel turns—oh, yes—by the grace of God!

My friends, my sisters and brothers, I’m reminding you of all this because discomfort and danger are abiding aspects of life. For indeed if we aren’t careful many familiar things, many familiar forces, can become filled to the brim with danger. Such as food and drink, entertainment and family relations, patent medicine and tobacco, even self-confidence, modesty, and well-deserved pride. Yes, and even the most sacred of joyful music. For given the wrong combination of circumstances any of these can lead to destruction!

Therefore, my friends, we must get ourselves together and learn more of the larger world in which we are living! Because what we don’t know can do us in! Not that there aren’t plenty of things in BOTH worlds—and especially in the blurred and concealed connections between them—to justify ANYBODY’S being skittish
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Indeed, our problem is one of knowing of what, exactly, to BE afraid. For recognize it or not, there are real dangers hidden in the shadows used to limit and control us. For always we see as through a glass darkly, and I don’t mean those fancy things those young folks up ahead are wearing
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For even fashion can blind us, and one of the worst things to have happened to this country is that today people are being deliberately taught to fear harmless situations and people while being urged, badgered, and exhorted to grab fearlessly onto things that can destroy
them. Oh, yes! Somewhere along the way that old earthly wisdom called “common sense” went plumb out of style! Yes, and with it the obvious fact that while fear can inhibit action it has the function of preserving life. For as we all know and forget at our peril, it takes COURAGE to be afraid of real danger and stay alive! Did somebody say “Amen”?

So here, as in other ways, we have fallen below the level of the birds and the beasts, who never forget that just being alive is precarious and precious! And yet if we would use our eyes and minds and remember that up there above us all HIS eye is on us even as it is on the sparrow, the heron, and the whale. Therefore, in using our eyes and minds we are prepared to live neither in cocksure daring nor in sheer fear and trembling, but in faith. Otherwise we are so much at the mercy of the many, many things and circumstances that can kill us that we are unable to perform even the simplest acts that make us human
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For memory can kill, and forgetfulness can kill, and the deliberate rejection of memory which is practiced in this country can be most deadly. Oh yes! As deadly as arsenic, rabies, or internal war. For it can come at us on our blind sides and kill us in unexpected ways. It can erupt out of things as innocent as a handful of dust, drops of water, a shaft of sunlight, a splinter of glass, a misguided leap, stumble, or fall, a needle in the flesh, a sniff of powder, or explosion of noise on the eardrums
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And shortsightedness can kill, as can staring at one point in a total scene as we look backwards while traveling ahead. Or staring at a single segment of a complex action while ignoring the expanse of the whole—this too can kill
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And ignoring the possible connections BETWEEN actions and their results. Or between causes and effects. Or the tricky, distorting web that time itself spins between past wrongs, forgetfulness, and present-day resentments—these can kill
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And reducing complex events to simplicities and calling it “history” can kill. And I mean long after such distortions have been lied about so often that they become meaningless. For then such so-called “history” can be far, far more deadly than war
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And blind power and arrogance can kill—as can impatience before human complexity
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And ignoring the fact that we can reap what we sow. Or that what goes up has to come down. Or that the higher a monkey climbs the more he shows his …

… No, no, Hickman! Because while true it wouldn’t do! But keep riffing …

… Or that the last shall be first and the weak be made strong, and that the meek who endure shall inherit whatever the hell is left of all the confusion created by the inevitable downfall of arrogant pride
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Oh yes, my friends, my sisters and brothers, many things can kill. MANY things. But nothing is more deadly than forgetting that ALL men are brothers who possess the same instincts, emotions, and dreams. And if we ignore this it can kill us most cruelly. As cruelly as lynch ropes, gasoline, and torches
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But why stop with such extremes? Why stop there, when pretty women can kill? And airplanes, bucking horses, careless physicians, and bad, uncommitted teachers—yes, and sinful, fore-day-creeping, rabble-rousing, money-grubbing publicity-seeking PREACHERS—yes, that’s right! They too can kill! As can prejudiced politicians and unjust judges! All these can kill—and do, and in wholesale lots; whether in bed, in the air, the schoolroom, pulpit, ballot box, or at high noon on an empty sidewalk!

And IDEAS can kill—yes, that’s right! For in this weird, cantankerous country of ours with all of its newspapers, books, radios, and television bringing all kinds of information to all kinds of unknown, cranky, and volatile people … even the NEWS can kill
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For just as the world is made up of different peoples with different strokes, the news means different things to different folks. Therefore the same ideas that have the power to quicken one man’s mind, strengthen his will, and make him hale, hearty, and whole, can make another man mindless, dead, and forever still!

And a lack of charity can kill. For refusing to share with the weak and homeless can lead them to discover their potential power and allow some con man to use it and organize their resentment against you
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And the same is true of condescension and self-righteousness. For it is in our nature as human beings, men, women, individuals, and groups, to bring down arrogance and pompous, puffed-up Pride. Therefore even though it is our tradition to punish such things with laughter and scorn it remains most deadly
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And brushing aside the opinions of the weak (like those of that little Indian baby) or the weaknesses of the strong, or the vision of the blind, or the blindness of visionaries, or the holiness of sinners—all or any of these can lead to deadly confusion and to death by confusion
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And ignoring the justified complaints of our fellow human beings can kill—even as playing too long upon the guilt of the strong when we press our just claims against them. For then it can backfire and make them even more steadfast and unyielding in their unjustness. And in defending their acts and wrongdoings they will kill us in the name of the very ideals and principles upon which we base our just claims
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For if driven into a corner and deprived of the slipperiness of words, they will turn upon us in anger, saying, “Yes, so all right, you’ve made your point, but we kill you in the name of DEMOCRACY!”

Or they will say, “Yes! What you say is true, for we see your suffering and sympathize. But nevertheless we must deny you freedom in the name of a future freedom, one which is higher and more GLORIOUS!”

And then if we keep pressing—as we have to do, oh, yes!—and cry out and appeal to them in the name of Almighty God, they will shrug their shoulders and perhaps even smile as they inform us in the most reasonable of language, “Ah yes, you are right again. But you must understand that WE have OUR history just as YOU have yours, but unfortunately both are against you. Therefore you must understand that there is nothing personal in what we do, because we kill you in the name of our God, who in all things is most JUST and GENTLE!”

So while we stand confounded by their insistence that God’s will and what they call “history” are one and the same, they will rear back and kill us in the name of their God, and feel not only justified in what they’ve done but as innocent as a babe and hound-tooth clean! …

Okay, Rev, if you insist, but we’re almost back to the real world, so you’d better pull that hound’s tooth and get it over with…
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That, my friends, is the bind we’re in. But the saving grace is that we see the lay of the land and the structure of his lie, just as we see the joke in his thinking that we willingly accept it. But here we must remember that if we hate our enemies for rejecting our humanity we’ll end up participating in our own DESTRUCTION
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So let us remember the ties that bind us to this land and to those who oppose us—not for their sake, but for the sake of our own salvation. And since blind blackness can kill no less than blind whiteness, and just as self righteously, there’s no lasting satisfaction to be found in blind retaliation based on our blackness. Yea, we must love our enemies as ourselves—not because we bow down before their will—oh no! But because both we and they are committed to the same transcendent ideal. Yes, and it is in the name of that unifying ideal that we both toil and suffer, and it is precisely because of that shared ideal that they shall fail and we shall prevail
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Therefore, my sisters and brothers, let us cling to OUR version of the all-encompassing vision and heed the glad tidings that bind us to this land. Let us survive and give hope to ALL its people…
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… In other words, dear sisters and brothers, he’s telling you to quit all your messing around and get your black selves TOGETHER!

Feeling a loss of motion, he opened his eyes to find the bus rolling through the downtown streets of the city, and shook his head as he thought,
Hickman, urging folks to live in faith is fine, but hitting them over the head with poorly organized ideas is something else. So since that’s about the
homeliest
homiletic you’ve ever come up with, you’d better remember that corny sermons make for gloomy Sundays and half-empty churches…
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Now that the bus was parked before the famous downtown hotel, the aisle filled with passengers. And as they made their departure he remained in his seat and looked out to see them take off in various directions. Some with their luggage were hailing taxis while others moved toward the hotel to the jovial welcome of its uniformed doorman. And as he watched people on the sidewalk approaching the hotel from both directions he was reminded that he faced the annoying problem of finding a room before proceeding to drop in on Janey.