Can bad things come out of good people?
In a speech given in Milwaukee on Jan. 27, 1964, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed: “It may be true that you cannot legislate morality but behavior can be regulated.” In simpler terms, you might translate this as, “You can’t change the way someone thinks, but you can change the way he acts.” It’s something to think about when you hear that someone has shocked others by inadvertently saying something terrible that seems incongruous with everything else for which he or she is known.
Personally, I’m more interested in a corollary to this profound observation. “Do rightly, especially when you think wrongly.” It’s a basic rule for those who wish to grow in the spiritual life, or as we Catholics would say it, for those who are trying to become saints.
Many people have written about the steps to the conversion of one’s soul, how to recognize them, how to attain them. I certainly can’t claim it to be an area of personal expertise. However, I do remember something my son told me many years ago.
He was a picky eater, though he wished he could get himself to try new things. He related to me a story he had read somewhere about scientists who had discovered that there is some sort of adaptation that occurs involving the tastebuds and one’s perception of flavors when a person repeatedly tries a food they do not enjoy.
It seems that after ten separate tastings of a particular food, most people find themselves enjoying the flavor they had previously despised.
They provided all sorts of scientifically gathered evidence for this, though my son’s own attempt to prove (or to disprove) the idea has still been inconclusive.
I daresay that there have been many Catholics, recognizing that they are afflicted with thoughts and attitudes based on un-Christian prejudice, who have successfully exorcized their demons with God’s grace and by good deeds and service for and among the very people who were the object of their bigotry.
They acted like good people to become good people. They willed the purification of their hearts.
Sometimes, “it’s the thought that counts” is really not as true as we’d like to think. Actions often do speak louder than words, and certainly more loudly than the unheard thoughts behind them. Sometimes, by our will and God’s grace, our actions can inform our thoughts more than our thoughts inform our actions.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Dr. Martin Luther King’s visits to Milwaukee left permanent mark
