Creative Living : Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Good Life

by Long, Michael G.

• ISBN13: 9780827204966
• ISBN10: 0827204965
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Chalice Pr

Summary

Over the past half-century much has been written about the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. Since the 1955 march in Montgomery, Alabama, King has been quoted, studied, and critiqued. Informed by extensive writings about King and drawing heavily on King’s own words–especially from his column Advice for Living, Michael Long shares with us King’s vision of the good life, his notion of creative living that can become our own. In engaging and conversational style, Long brings together the main ideas of King’s writings and the overall concepts of his life. Careful attention to King studies and criticism about King’s life are includes in footnotes, providing up-to-date scholarship for more serious students of King while allowing general readers to focus on King’s advice as presented in the narrative—advice that will help us all to live creatively and that will ground us in even the most groundless times. King had an unwavering belief that the one and only starting point of creative living is the God of love and justice as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. He preached time and time again that only God can pull us out of despair and set us on the right road to creative living—a life reflective of the love and justice that are an integral part of the character of God. Martin Luther King Jr. on Creative Living shares with us King’s vision of that life and helps us create our own vision of what it means to live creatively.

Author Biography

Michael G. Long is assistant professor of religion at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vi
INTRODUCTION The Heart of Creative Living	1	(6)
CHAPTER ONE Never Alone
Creative Living with God	7	(27)
CHAPTER TWO Keep On Keeping On
Creative Living in the Past, Present, and Future	34	(36)
CHAPTER THREE Make a Career of Humanity
Advice for Acting	70	(28)
CHAPTER FOUR Retreat to the Mountain
Advice for Being	98	(25)
CHAPTER FIVE Conquer the Fear of Death
Advice for Living and Dying Well	123