Today we highlight exemplars: A. J. Muste, Mister Rogers, and Benjamin Lay. These were men who lived lives that challenged the expectations of their time and culture. These are peacemakers; but they bring the fire of justice in both word and deed. These men fought for the lives of the oppressed.
Perhaps the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Christian Bible gives the clearest instruction – Be good to your neighbor. Help those who have been defined as enemies (not by your own reckoning, but by habit and culture). Truly, Neighbor describes us all.
Our three kings, or three wise men, can offer us some aid when it comes to living lives in the service of all life. Modeled on the Biblical Magi of Christian tradition, these men brought gifts to a child said to be a once and future king. Their three gifts are described generally as gold symbolizing virtue, frankincense symbolizing prayer, and myrrh symbolizing suffering.
SEGMENT ONE Leilah DanielsonA. J. Muste: bearing the Gold of Virtue to us. A. J. Muste was referred to throughout the world as the “American Gandhi,” and he’s probably best known for his leadership of the peace movement in the postwar era but before that he was one of the most influential of labor organizers of the early 20th century. For this episode I spoke with Leilah Danielson, a professor of History at Northern Arizona University, and author of American Gandhi: A. J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century.
SEGMENT TWO Michael LongFred Rogers: bearing Frankincense, the symbol of the prayerful life. For this show we spoke with Michael Long, associate professor of Religious Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and author of Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers. Fred Rogers was a complex iconoclast: a television host who hated most television, a soft-spoken Presbyterian minister who purposefully addressed thorny topics others wouldn’t touch, a broadcaster who insisted on speaking as if to a single child watching in his living room. Rogers’ style was subtle, but his politics were radical.
SEGMENT THREE Marcus Rediker
Benjamin Lay: bearing Myrrh as a symbol of suffering. Lay was an Englishman, Quaker, cobbler, sailor, cultural shock firebrand, cave dweller, autodidact, animal liberationist, and outspoken critic of the hypocrisy of slave-owning Quakers in 18th century Pennsylvania. When you need an example of a person who walks the talk, look no further. Our guest is historian Marcus Rediker author of The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist.
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