The following is adapted from the talk that Tom Gibian gave during the SSFS all-school holiday assembly on December 13.
There is an expression that I like. Many of us know it from Martin Luther King.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Well, how long is the arc? How long is history? How important is history?
To me, the moral arc represents generations of people, some of whom we know. Our parents and our grandparents. Your Mom, your grandma. Her mom and her grandma.
My daughter was born in 1990. I was born in 1953. My mom was born in 1917. Women didn’t vote, and the President rode a horse for inauguration. Her father was born in 1882, and her grandfather was born in the 1840s - before the Civil War. My great-grandfather, unsmiling and sitting with his 12 children in front of an unpainted house without electricity or a bathroom is captured in time by a photograph. That’s five generations ago, taking you back to President Polk. Five more generations takes you back to people who might have known George Fox. The first Quakers who were challenging convention, wearing shaggy, shaggy locks, and off on journeys to seek the Light were maybe 10 generations ago. The moral arc of the universe proceeds. The way opens.
Let’s look a little further. Many of us are celebrating Christmas. From my daughter to the first Christmas was over 2000 years ago - about 100 generations.
The number of generations from my daughter to the original folks, Adam and Eve, who came out of Africa - probably the Rift Valley - say, 100,000 years ago: That’s 5000 generations. It is interesting to think that 98% of human life on the earth occurred before Christianity.
So the moral arc is long; we’ve been trying to figure things out for 5000 sets of parents. But the arc bends toward justice because some people put themselves on the tip of the arc. They shape the trajectory for the world, often by introducing simple, radical ideas: Love thy neighbor; walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in everyone.
So everyone, all Springers: find the sharp edge of the moral arc. Be leaders, be true yourselves, Let your Lives Speak.
Merry Christmas.