Looking back on his life shortly before he died, John Lewis evoked the old vision that he never abandoned, according to Lewis’s wonderful new autobiography by Jon Meacham.
“We truly believed that through the discipline and nonviolence, through the power of peace and the power of love, that we could transform this nation into something Martin Luther King Jr. called a Beloved Community,” Lewis told Meacham.
That, said Lewis, was the conscious goal of their movement. “We worked, we struggled, and we suffered to make that dream a reality. Consider those two words. Beloved Community. ‘Beloved’ meaning not hateful, not violent, not uncaring, not unkind, and ‘Community’ meaning not separated, not polarized, not locked in struggle, the Beloved Community is an all-inclusive world society based on simple justice, the values, the dignity, and the worth of every human being and that is the Kingdom of God.”
He often alluded to Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, a mission text among the disciples of the civil rights movement he had known and loved.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
The movement of which Lewis had been so central and integral a part, wrote Meacham, had done more to change America for the better than any single domestic undertaking since the Civil War, joining emancipation and women’s suffrage as brilliant chapters in the as yet unfolding story of America.
Whether we are Democrats or Republicans, wrote Lewis, we are one people. “We are one house,” he said. “We are one family. It doesn’t matter. We have to find a way to live together. We have to find a way to understand each other. We have to find a way to make peace with one another.”
Powerful words, and eerily timely a half-century after Selma. It is beautiful to read those words, but there’s nothing harder to do. In 2020, Lewis told Meacham, “I have a deep sense of restlessness. I wish I could say more, do more, to save us, to press on.”
But he was already and close to the end. I’m not sure what happened to this spirit, this faith, the idea of the Beloved Community. It seems to me that it is more timely and relevant than ever.
When I read about the civil rights movement, I see the importance of a leader. Like it or not, look what Donald Trump has done as a leader. Think what a different leader could do.
I don’t want to sound messianic, but I believe there is a leader out there waiting to rise and bring back the idea of one house, one family, one community. It’s never too late for that, and it happens quite often in history – a King, a Mandela, a Washington, a Gandhi. None of them perfect people, but all with a vision, often faith-based, for bringing divided people together.
I see this election as having shaken the tree. A lot of things will fall out that we haven’t imagined or foreseen. That is what hope and faith are.
We have to find a way to understand each other. We have to find a way to make peace with each other.
I thought about this today: Without the pandemic, we will still be lumbering along, bitterly divided, frightened, heading for four more years of anger and division.
That is changing. A great coalition is forming, so many people are tired of arguing and hating. It is time for something else. I’m not speaking as a Christian, which I’m not, but as a citizen, which I am.
Our messiah is out there somewhere.
I imagine he or she will be young, brave, idealistic as Lewis was when he crossed the Pettus Bridge. This year happened for a reason. I can’t wait to see what comes now.