Captain Moroni and MLK: in which I give a U2 sermon

Last week I watched a pretty moving show on satellite about MLK on MLK day. The show played bits of speeches I have not heard and I really felt what he was saying. I have mixed feelings about what the civil rights movement became after Dr. King and Mother Parks (entitlement is one of my peeves), but the things they were fighting against were inherently wrong and his rhetoric in the speeches I heard last Monday was inherently right and true.

Let me preface my little story here with this: I find soul-stirring inspiration and truth in lots of things—I quite like looking for it (like the Innocence Mission song that says, “I look for the good in everything—it hurts when I cannot find it.”)—but I still maintain that the only perfect man was Christ and the only perfect truth is contained in his gospel. But I find his qualities and his teachings scattered throughout everyday life because (a) we are all God’s children and have inherited some of His qualities, and (b) mankind cannot help but be attracted to light and truth.

So either I am way too hormonal, or I rediscovered some spirit-stirring beauty this morning. Probably both. At any rate, I was driving up to the church for a big 4-hour long Enrichment Day (that’s when the women get together to learn and make stuff while enjoying each other’s company and, sometimes, a yummy meal—I was teaching a mini-class on Celebrating Valentines Day as a family—fun traditions and some cute little gifts for kids, husbands and friends). I was listening to my U2’s greatest hits CD and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” is the first song. For some reason, the song just hit me in the gut, the same way it did when I saw the video on some Saturday morning show back in 1983, and I ran and scribbled the name of the band and song in one of my sixth grade notebooks. Back then I didn’t know the meaning of the words, but today I do and they touched me so much, I started to cry.

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resists
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love --What more in the name of love ?

(nobody like you...)
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
In the name of love --What more in the name of love ?

The idea of dying for truth & justice, whether is be the infinite atonement of the Savior, or one of a million lives that have been given so that man may be what he was meant to be…well, it’s pretty heart wrenching. I thought of all the dear friends I have whose skin is darker than mine (well, that’s 99% of the human race) and tried to imagine them being treated as half a person, as another species, as not my equal. It hurts to imagine, and I thank God I was born in my time and place. But it breaks my heart, and I know it breaks God’s heart, too, to see what we still do to each other after all the lives and testimonies that have been given for what is right and true.

So before today, I hadn’t thought of Civil Rights in the gospel context, but I realize now that liberty and equality are always just causes. Heck, it’s the theme of the Book of Mormon—from Captain Moroni’s Title of Liberty to the description of the peaceful times, “conquer we must when our cause it is just, and this be our motto, In God is our Trust.” It’s a worthy fight; I’m just sorry it has cost us some of our brightest lives. I still cling to the ideal:

“And it came to pass… the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land… and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift.”

-4 Nephi 1: 22-23


PS: I do realize that Bono, like Oprah, has a severe God complex, and I try to look past their enormous egos and admit that they have done some good. We just got the “Rattle and Hum” DVD and I watched it tonight with Rich with our pimped-out surround sound and I must say, it was almost as good as being there. And I WAS there in Sun Devil Stadium, two nights in December 1987 in the cold rain where they filmed Bono singing “MLK”—“Sleep tonight/ and may your dream be realized/ If the thunder cloud passes rain/ so let it rain down on me,” and it totally started raining. I never want to see U2 again because they will never be as good as they were on the Joshua Tree tour (nor will they be as cheap--$5 a ticket). Watching the DVD tonight made me feel all the same exact teenage feelings as I felt, standing there in the rain with my-love-of-that-year, Robert, knowing that we were watching something really amazing. Something new stood out to me this time, though—right before the footage of them singing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” Bono gives a preface. He says he’s not sure that the song should even be in the film because there is no way the audience will appreciate the way they felt on stage the day of the concert. That same day there was a bombing in Ireland that killed 11 people and injured many others. They had been singing the song for, like, 6 years and still horrible acts of terrorism were still happening in Ireland. When Bono said we wouldn’t understand in 1987, he was right. But we most certainly understand after 2001. So THIS time, 19 years later, I understood what he was singing and why his voice cracked and why he screamed “no more!”