Midlife Meditation

Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, Washington, D.C. Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.  Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble. These words come from a sermon by Theodore Parker, a Unitarian Minister, Transcendentalist, and Abolitionist. They first saw print in a collection of sermons published in 1853, and, quoted by essayists, preachers, and politicians, were ultimately boiled down to this aphorism: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." In that form, the quote found its way into the sermons of many a pr...

Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963. He was 34. I don't feel like a "sir." I've noticed lately that young adults are calling me "sir," and I don't like it. I don't feel like I'm old enough to have earned this honorific, and frankly, I've just gotten used to being called by my first name by strangers, as happens all the time with customer service representatives, salespeople, doctors, anyone else I encounter who can figure out my name. My school students call me "Mr. Anderson," but my private students call me "Mark," and I'm fine with that. I don't mind that, when I log in at the gym with my fingerprint and phone number, whichever hot young receptionist behind the front desk calls me "Mark," whether or not this is his or her first time seeing me. That almost forced casualness has become a part of American culture, and while I occasionally roll my eyes at the loss of the formal mode of communication...