Ceramics Teacher Becky Soderberg ’94 returns to SPS following a sabbatical in Portugal.
January 17, 2025
Campus visitors and special programming bring to life “MLK Jr. and the Moral Imagery”
BY KRISTIN DUISBERG
The SPS community spent Jan. 14 and 15 honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a pair of campus visitors. Justin Merrick, a Grammy-nominated multi-genre artist and educator who also serves as the executive director at the Center for Transforming Communities, met with students in Humanities classes on the 14th and spoke and performed in chapel on both days. On Jan. 15 — the day that would have been King’s 96th birthday — the very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral and Anglican Communion Canon at England’s Newcastle Cathedral and currently a visiting professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School, delivered a keynote on the topic of “MLK Jr. and the Moral Imaginary” during a special Wednesday chapel. In advance of Monday’s national holiday, the SPS observation was an opportunity for thought-provoking ideas, stirring performances and deep discussions.
Nearly 60 years after King’s assassination, the two speakers brought to life for the SPS community the civil rights leader’s world and his dreams for the future. Douglas set the stage for her chapel talk by describing her memory of watching on television King’s Aug. 28, 1963, march on Washington with her parents, and shared the “audacious dream” of her grandmother — an elevator operator in Columbus, Ohio, who left school after sixth grade — that her four grandchildren all would finish high school. She then reflected on King’s own audacious dreams of racial equality in a segregated nation and invited those gathered in the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul to wonder how it was that King, her parents and her grandmother all had the audacity to dream their dreams out loud.
Visitor Justin Merrick performs during chapel.
Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas delivers keynote “MLK Jr. and the Moral Imaginary” during chapel.
“Here’s the thing …To be a religious people is to be a people who have asked and answered the question, ‘Is there more to life than this? Is there more to life than a world of unjust justice?’” she said. “The answer is yes — there is more. The more that exceeds the imagination if what we perceive to be humanly possible; the more of what is possible with God. This is the more of our moral imaginary, unbounded by the limitation of a people’s biases and inclinations, unbounded by a nation’s policies or practices, or even a church’s creeds and doctrines.” King, Douglas explained, had listened to the “whispers of his soul” that opened him to the moral imaginary — and she encouraged members of the St. Paul’s community to listen to the whispers of their own souls and be guided by their own moral imaginaries of what is possible. “That is what it means to dare the dream as King dared to dream,” she said.
Merrick’s Tuesday chapel talk and his visit to the Religion and Ethics Humanities class taught by the Rev. Charles Wynder Jr., SPS dean of chapel and spiritual life, dovetailed beautifully with Douglas’ keynote. In remarks that began with a description of his relationship with the Rev. James Lawson, his longtime mentor and the Center for Transforming Communities founder who was a close ally of King’s, Merrick described the power of putting intentions into action through the alchemy of work and words. “We want to put into the world narratives that are healing, in a space where often there are harmful narratives,” he said. “… if a story is a star, then a collection of stories is a narrative, and the collection of stories will be a cluster of stars. … culture is defined by a collection of narratives, just like a cluster of stars creates a galaxy. I say that because in our world we believe that one story can change the world. We believe that your story can change the world.”
During Wednesday’s chapel, Merrick illustrated the transformative power of storytelling by inviting the community “to enter the portal of the moral imaginary” with him, speaking as his mentor Lawson to describe leading the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike alongside King. Throughout the 75-minute chapel service, Merrick also performed peaceful protest songs that included “Union,” “Precious Lord” and “Justice & Love,” singing both acapella and accompanied by SPS organist Nicholas White.
Rev. Wynder describes this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day speakers and messages as a special combination. “Justin Merrick’s class visit was foundational to expanding students’ understanding of the practical applications of religion and ethics in community, and his interactive stories of applied theology opened their minds to the meaning of the intersection of love, power and justice,” he says. “Having the Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas deliver a powerful and moving homily that charged the community to embrace the work of listening to the moral imaginary was a dream come true, and the gift of Merrick’s original musical compositions and collaboration with our own Nicholas White amplified her timely message.”
Bethany Dickerson Wynder, director of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice initiatives at SPS, adds that the observation was important to the School’s ongoing work around fostering Beloved Community. “The theme of MLK Jr. and the Moral Imaginary’ has served as a frame around ways that the SPS community might think about what is possible in forming a more just society,” she says. “This good work helps us build connections, support one another’s ongoing work and coordinate current and future efforts at combating racial and social injustice.”
