The remarkable healing effect of humbly waiting in silence

January 29, 5:08 AMPhiladelphia Health ExaminerThomas Hartmann

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Philadelphia Health Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

photo:  Martin Luther King gallery17

This article continues yesterday’s story of Dr. Martin Luther King’s remarkable spiritual transformation at his kitchen table after receiving a middle-of-the-night bomb threat on his house.

Having given voice of his concern to his Lord, he felt a tremendous sense of reassurance come over him, and from that point on, changed from a fearful man to a reassuring presence at the head of the civil rights movement.

In the next few days, when his home was in fact bombed and he was called to the scene, he found his family scared but alive in the back of his house. One of the white policemen present, outnumbered by the angry black crowd, admitted later that without Dr. King’s call for calm and non-violence, blood would have been shed.

Of course, it might have been harder for him had his family been killed, but his inner peace stayed with him through the rest of his life, including through the almost-fatal attempt on his life.

The story of Dr. King’s spiritual health is relevant to anyone faced with tremendous fear or hatred. Not everyone has the background in theology or the same strong belief system that grounded Dr. King that night at the kitchen table, but across cultures it is acknowledged that expectant waiting in acknowledgement of utter powerlessness often leads to the most remarkable personal growth.

Some call it the voice of God, others the still small voice, still others the vibration of the universe sensed during meditation. Some Holocaust survivors, no strangers to this voice, may even be able to imagine what King felt had he returned and found his family dead at the hands of the bombers,

Upcoming: more stories of spiritual health in the face of adversity