The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – There was a time in this country, in this world, when most people were probably good people willing to go out of their way to help their neighbors.

There are still good people out there for sure, helping others every day.

But some days they don’t seem to be a majority anymore.

Why?

What went wrong?

I think you, my friends, fans and followers, have a good sense of this. You know how greedy and selfish Donald Trump really is. It’s blatantly obvious. You know he doesn’t care about the “losers and suckers” who support him. He laughs at them all the way to the bank.

Among those who fervently oppose him, I see altruism every day in between the selfies, the silly memes and cat pics on Facebook. You have to dig for it, but it’s there.

Of course the bots don’t like it. It does not serve the purpose of making even more money for their greedy, selfish “creator.” You know who I mean.

Since I’m no famous celebrity on cable news talk or a flashy “influencer” on Instagram or TikTok – or a prophet or Christian savior either – I cannot solve this riddle for the masses all at one time in a short video on YouTube. The message is complicated and requires some deep thought. For me that means a lot of time camping in the mountains with an internet connection where I can read, think and write. Writers write. That’s what I do.

But there was such a man not so long ago who tried to impart this message, and he was followed by millions, then died in his quest. Even though we are not of the same race or religion, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was such a man. I’ve have long admired his education and intelligence as well as his charisma that made him a hero to so many. His speeches and sermons were filled with literary references and connections.

Long-time regular readers may have tired of me retelling this story in numerous ways over the years. But perhaps this message deserves one more telling here for all the new people coming on board as my Facebook page has exploded again in part due to the new enthusiasm about the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign now taking the country by storm, like a sea change.

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Like Martin Luther King, I have been to the mountaintop, and seen a glimpse of what the “promised land” might look like. There is some hope for a heaven on Earth without war and massive environmental destruction. But there is no guarantee that any of us will get there. Like his inspiration Moses and King himself, I don’t expect to get there with you, if it comes. But for now at least I can elevate this message one more time before I must go.

As students of this history know, King’s final speech was called “The Mountaintop Speech.” He delivered it from the Mason Temple, April 3, 1968, in support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee — the day before he was assassinated.

You may recall the ending from news videos.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead,” King said. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life – longevity has its place.

“But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land,” King said, echoing the message of Moses to the Jews after going up Mount Sinai.

“I may not get there with you,” he said, seeming to get that he was most likely going to be killed for his activism. “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

You can see the full speech here.

But for today, I want to focus on another MLK speech, or sermon really:

“On Being a Good Neighbor”

You may recall the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. King talked about it at some length.

“I should like to talk with you about a good man, whose exemplary life will always be a flashing light to plague the dozing conscience of mankind. His goodness was not found in a passive commitment to a particular creed, but in his active participation in a life saving deed; not in a moral pilgrimage that reached its destination point, but in the love ethic by which he journeyed life’s highway. He was good because he was a good neighbor,” King said, retelling for a modern audience a story supposedly told to the disciples by Jesus himself.

(One little aside for clarity. I recently watched a remake of the story of Hercules on a streaming service, a story from Greek mythology. In the end the narrator indicated that it did not really matter whether Hercules was truly the son of Zeus, the king of the gods. He was a hero to his people too, sort of like Jesus and MLK. Whether Jesus was truly the son of a god is not what’s important, in other words. He inspired a new religion that was supposed to be based on love and altruism toward all people, not just a chosen elite few. If that sounds a little like the promise of American democracy, well, I said it. Maybe some people will like it enough to pass it on.)

I recently ran across this video on Facebook from James Talarico, an American politician and former teacher. He counters the myth about “Christian Nationalism” very well.

Back to King’s Story

“The ethical concern of this man is expressed in a magnificent little story, which begins with a theological discussion on the meaning of eternal life and concludes in a concrete expression of compassion on a dangerous road,” King said. “Jesus is asked a question by a man who had been trained in the details of Jewish law: ‘Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’“

“What is written in the law? How readest thou?” Jesus is said to have replied.

After a moment the lawyer comes back: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”

Then comes the decisive word from Jesus, King says: “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”

The lawyer was chagrined. “Why,” the people might ask, “would an expert in law raise a question that even the novice can answer?” Desiring to justify himself and to show that Jesus’ reply was far from conclusive, the lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbor?”

“The lawyer was now taking up the cudgels of debate that might have turned the conversation into an abstract theological discussion,” King says. “But Jesus, determined not to be caught in the ‘paralysis of analysis,’ pulls the question from mid air and places it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. He told the story of ‘a certain man’ who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him, and, departing, left him half dead.

“By chance a certain priest appeared, but he passed by on the other side (of the road). And later a Levite also passed by,” King said, pausing for effect. “Finally, a certain Samaritan, a half-breed from a people with whom the Jews had no dealings, appeared. When he saw the wounded man, he was moved with compassion, administered first aid, placed him on his beast, ‘and brought him to an inn, and took care of him’.”

Who is my neighbor?

“’I do not know his name’,” says Jesus. “He is anyone toward whom you are neighborly,” says King. “He is anyone who lies in need at life’s roadside. He is neither Jew nor Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither Negro nor white. He is ‘a certain man’ any needy man on one of the numerous Jericho roads of life.”

Then King goes on to explain the concept of creative altruism.

“What constituted the goodness of the good Samaritan? Why will he always be an inspiring paragon of neighborly virtue? It seems to me that this man’s goodness may be described in one word: altruism. The good Samaritan was altruistic to the core. What is altruism? The dictionary defines altruism as ‘regard for, and devotion to, the interest of others.’ The Samaritan was good because he made concern for others the first law of his life.”

The Samaritan had the capacity for a universal altruism, as King tells the story.

“He had a piercing insight into that which is beyond the eternal accidents of race, religion, and nationality,” King said. “One of the great tragedies of man’s, long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class, or nation.”

You can see now why this so-called “White Nationalism” or Christian Nationalism of Trump and MAGA company is so bad and destructive.

The God of early Old Testament days was a tribal god and the ethic was tribal, King points out.

“Thou shalt not kill” meant “‘Thou shalt not kill a fellow Israelite, but for God’s sake, kill a Philistine.”

Greek democracy embraced certain aristocracy, “but not the hordes of Greek slaves whose labors built the city states,” King points out.

Then comes the critic of America and its failing as a country and a democracy.

“The universalism at the center of the Declaration of Independence has been shamefully negated by America’s appalling tendency to substitute ‘some’ for ‘all’,” King says. “Numerous people in the North and South still believe that the affirmation, ‘All men are created equal,’ means ‘All white men are created equal,” King says. “Our unswerving devotion to monopolistic capitalism makes us more concerned about the economic security of the captains of industry than for the laboring men whose sweat and skills keep industry functioning.”

You can read the rest of the speech here.

But I would like for you to consider for today this message. America was not established as a Christian nation. The First Amendment grants freedom of religion to all people of all faiths. Just for the sake of argument, even if you want America to be a Christian nation, you cannot move that argument forward by following the likes of Donald Trump and making him an authoritarian dictator.

He is a con man, pure and simple, a modern day antichrist. He is using faith in a god to literally do what the so-called “good book” says not to do.

Following Donald Trump, sporting his MAGA cap, is in a way taking the mark of the beast on your forehead.

No one who supports this antichrist figure will earn eternal life. As the prophet John said in Revelation, you and your children and their children will be doomed to a thousand years of hell on Earth.

To the misguided souls who cobled together Project 2025, you too are being conned. And you are perpetrating this con on America and humanity.

This IS the story I was inspired to tell when I first contemplated leaving the religion I was raised in and becoming a journalist. I tell the whole story about that in my memoir, still available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. It’s not a New York Times best seller. But it is a true story, the story of someone who has spent a lifetime trying to learn how to practice creative altruism.

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To me, writing true stories and providing them for free on the web is an act of altruism. See my full archive on MLK and altruism here.

If you like it and believe this story is on the mark, perhaps you could practice a little altruism by keeping us alive a little while longer and helping us to remain in business to keep telling these stories.

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