Timothy J. Clarke - The Power of One, Direction

I want to preach about the Power of One Direction. The Power of One Direction. Those of you who know me know that I have a great affection, a great affinity, and a great appreciation for poetry. Now, Aunt Mary, I know that makes me somewhat of a dinosaur and it may even make me something of a nerd, but I am proud of it. I am proud! I’m proud, Robin, that as a man—how shall I say it without sounding too, you know, they got this new thing now, uh, but with this new thing called toxic masculinity—and any time I try to see where I can look for some refuge, Kevin, any time a man stands up and seeks to be a man, the culture we live in now wants to label that as toxic masculinity. Now, let me say this: there is, I guess, a thing called toxic masculinity, I suppose, but I will say this: what is often labeled toxic masculinity is no masculinity at all. Beating a woman is not masculinity. I need help right here. Being a bully is not masculinity. Being mean and nasty and vicious and violent and full of vitriol is not masculinity. Abusing a child, taking advantage of the elderly, our lips filled with vulgarity and profanity is not masculinity. I think we have to redeem, brothers, we have to redeem this warped idea of masculinity from a culture that doesn’t even know what masculinity is. A real man doesn’t have to go around beating up somebody or cursing out somebody to prove he’s a man. A real man is a man who is in touch, not only with himself, but in touch with the God who made him a man. I do not, I do not, I do not, I will not apologize for being a man—a Black man who loves poetry. I have a deep affection and affinity for the words of poets, and I must admit, Deacon Sylvia, I come to that not only because of the era in which I grew up, but because I grew up around a mother who loved poetry. I heard poetry in my home, I heard poetry in my church, I heard poetry in my school. Y’all are getting quiet on me. Everywhere I turned, I heard poetry. Now I’m going to say this, and since I’ve already made most of y’all mad, I might as well make the rest of y’all mad too: we have to stop letting our children only hear the vulgarity of rap music. We have to fill their ears, their hearts, their minds, and their spirits with words that uplift and take us to another level. We have to fall in love with what was called, when I was in school, the Romantic languages—the languages of poets, bards, philosophers, and scholars—words that uplifted us and challenged us, that soothed us and comforted us, and at the same time challenged us and corrected us. So, on this graduate Sunday, my precious graduates, I want to talk about the Power of One Direction, and I want to open the message with some words of poetry. The first comes from a man named John Oxenham; some of you—two of you, one of you besides me—know these words: «To every man, I’ll add person, that opens a way, and ways, and away, and the high soul climbs, the high road, and the low soul trudges through the low, and in between, on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro. To every man, to every person, there opens a highway, a way, and ways, and each one must decide which way their soul will go.» And then the words from Robert Frost: «Two roads diverged in a wood one day, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.» And then finally, these words from Solomon: «There is a way that seems right to a person, but the end of that way is death.» Those words—from the pens of poets, the other from the heart of Solomon—remind not only our graduates but all of us today that before us in life lie paths that we can take. Here is the subject; here is what you and I must grapple with, grasp, and understand: it matters what road you take. It matters what path you pursue. It matters what direction your life is going. And here is what I would say to our graduates; but, my God, I’d say it to all of us: none of us are wise enough in and of ourselves to choose the path of our lives. We need a better guide than ourselves. I wish I had help right here. Would you look at your neighbor and say «I know that’s right?» How many of us can admit that when we were charting our own course, when we were determining our own direction, when we were pursuing our own path, my God, look at where it led us? It was not until I feel like preaching that we turned the direction of our lives over to the God that made us that we found the path we ought to be on. And there will be—I know I sound like an old funky, but beloved, there will be many who will seek to lead us down paths, direct us down paths, to take us down paths.