Martin Luther King's Connection to an Evangelist and Mahatma Gahandi

This book is a remembrance of the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi, written by the Christian evangelist E. Stanley Jones, was the author's first hand reflection on the nonviolent yet confrontational campaigns of Gandhi and the connections between Gandhi's strategies and the teachings of Jesus.  The book, published in 1948, was a failure in terms of sales, and considered by Jones himself as his least successful book.  A few years later a graduate of Crozier Divinity School in Rochester, New York, who had moved on to attend grad school at Boston University, came upon this book in the university library. That student was Martin Luther King.  He was deeply moved by the book and he wrote in the margin of the book "This is It!  This is the way to achieve freedom for the negro in North America." You can still see King's marginal notation in the Martin Luther King Library in Atlanta. Prior to leaving Boston University for Sweden to receive the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, the university held a convocation in his honor.  There he met Jones's daughter and said to her "E. Stanley Jones was a very important person for me, for it was his book on Mahatma Gandhi that triggered my used of Gandhi's method of nonviolence as a weapon for our own people's freedom in the United States."  Although King had studied Gandhi's method of nonviolence for years, it was not until he read Jones's treatment of Gandhi's did he see the connection to the civil rights movement in the United States.  What appeared to be one of E. Stanley Jones's greatest failures turned out to be something greatly used by God to bring about change for good in the world.  Jones's faithfulness to follow a suggestion by the Methodist Publishing House to write a book on his remembrances of Mahatma Gandhi over time brought about good on God's earth.

Similarly, our acts of faith in the hands of God, will bear fruit, probably not immediately and possibly not in our lifetime, but God is not constrained by place and time.  So respond to God's word to you, both his written word and the Holy Spirit, and know that he will in His time bring forth fruit. 

(This blog post was entirely summarized from the forward of Victorious Living a daily devotional written by E. Stanley Jones and most recently published by Abingdon Press in 2015.)

Thy Kingdom Come on Earth - I

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven."

(Matthew 6:9-10)

I participated in a discussion on Friday night with a colleague at a social gathering concerning how do we, the people of God, reach outside the comfortable church worlds we live in to those who are needy in this world.  Although he comes from a Catholic tradition and I a Protestant tradition, we both agreed that this is vital.  As we talked on, I realized that Corinne and I have helped a couple of needy women who have entered our circle in the last 10 years.  In both cases, I honestly felt that our financial, emotional and spiritual support made a difference in their lives. And I know that they both feel God's love for them.

At the worship service we attended today, the person leading the prayer time prayed the unusual prayer "Lord, help us to ponder the question "How do we make the invisible kingdom visible on earth?" So during this coming week one of my general prayers will be to seek opportunities to make God's invisible kingdom visible on earth.

Squeezed between these two events, we spent a good deal of Saturday remembering the life of Don Bergmann, the founder of Bergmann, at a memorial service and also reconnecting with his children and meeting their grandchildren at a reception that followed.  Remembering Don's life and my interactions with him and how they almost always lifted my spirits, was an uplifting kingdom-like experience.  I remembered when Don had his first surgery for some brain disorder, I gathered some of by colleagues together and we prayed together for Don in one of our conference rooms. He came through the surgery well and was back to work before long.  

So, I will have a full week of work this week, where there will be some opportunities to share in and experience the making of God's kingdom visible to those on earth.  Will my heart be prepared?  Will my spiritual eyesight be keen?  Will I be willing to take the necessary risks to be an avenue for kingdom of God coming into the world this week? 

Remembering Don Bergmann

I must have been one of several people hired twice by Don Bergmann.  First for Erdman & Anthony, and then for Bergmann Associates.   Even before he first hired me, he had worked for several years with my father who also worked for Erdman & Anthony.  They carpooled weekdays to work at Erdman & Anthony.  Even while I was in high school and then when I was in my college years, Don would be either checking in with me on what I was doing, and I recall at one point him visiting me and my father at our home.  My parents and Don and Barbara lived in Chili probably less than a mile apart.  Don’s interest in me and what I was doing in my younger years made a big and positive impression on me.

When I completed my engineering studies at Clarkson in 1977, the employment market was still pretty dismal, but I had offers from Erdmann & Anthony and with Harza Engineering Company.  Although the allure of joining an international water resources engineering company was pretty strong, so was Don’s enthusiasm, so I joined Erdmann & Anthony, which at the time was in a pretty strong growth mode and had some good projects going on.

One of Don’s many firsts was somehow winning a section of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Improvement Project, this between Harold Yard and New Rochelle, NY. One day he calls me over and spends about 30 minutes orienting me to the track realignment work that was needed to increase the travel speeds on the corridor.  We didn't have a track engineer, but I was about to become one.  He gave me a very brief explanation of spiral curve geometry (which I knew nothing about) and pointed me to the highway designers if I needed to find out more.  If he had any inclination that I was clueless, he sure didn’t show it. So here I was at 24 or 25 years of age, in charge of realigning 17 miles of track (some on bridge and some on viaduct) with dozens of spiral curves to improve the operating speed, and hardly knowing where to begin.  But it was those kind of experiences with Don that formed how I would approach other projects that I started work on that I knew little about.  One day we were on site, walking the track alignment, which took us to the viaduct that includes the iconic Hell Gate Arch Bridge over the East River.  Don, being a structural engineer, was particularly interested the bridge, so we entered one of the west towers, climbed up the staircase inside tower, and opened the door that was just above the top chord of the arch.  I am scared to death of heights but each of us walked out onto the upper chord a short distance while the other of us took a photo.  Walking out into that uncomfortable spot was what working for Don Bergmann was like.  Once I got over the fears, challenging myself became a way of life for me. 

Don was one of those unique people who went against the typical grain.  For most people “seeing is believing”.  For Don, and those he inspired, “believing is seeing”.  He constantly put me and others in those places that were uncomfortable for us, but with enthusiasm and inspiration alone, helped us to believe in ourselves.  I've seen first hand a rewarding and joyous career because I learned from Don to believe in myself.