Life's final common denominator
If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, If I can spread the message as the master taught, Then my living will not be in vain.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the gifts cancer has given me is the gift of recognizing my own mortality. None of us knows when our day will come, but when you are faced with an incurable diagnosis, you tend to view life a little differently.
Martin Luther King, Jr. woke up on April 4, 1968, not knowing that it would be the last morning of his life. Yet his writing and his speeches leading up to that fateful day showed that he did, in fact, understand that his life could be cut short at any moment.
Two months to the day before his death, Dr. King gave a sermon called “The Drum Major Instinct.” I listened to this sermon as I walked the beach on this morning, the 58th anniversary of his death.
“Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.
“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say.
“I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.
I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
“If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
If I can spread the message as the master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.