I came across the above quote this morning while reading King’s Strength to Love, a collection of his sermons tied together by a focus on the shared humanity of all people despite apparent and “accidental,” as he described them, differences. King acknowledges the reality of these accidental differences, those based on where, when, and with whom we were each born, but attempts to remind the reader of the underlying utter sameness, that which may be hard to see based on one’s particular cultural lenses but can be deeply felt at one’s emotional core. I’m reminded of Harry Stack Sullivan’s words, “we are all much more simply human than otherwise.”

In the book, each sermon uses as its inspiration a passage from the Bible, and while I don’t identify as Christian, I’m happy to receive life lessons from any cultural background if it speaks to me. I even to some degree prefer to receive lessons from traditions I’m unfamiliar with, because my existing understanding inevitably expands to something new rather than recycling what I think I already know. To paraphrase the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, you cannot begin to learn what you think you already know.

One biblical parable King references is the popular story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man has been robbed, beaten, and left naked and “half-dead” on the side of a dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho. In the parable, several people passed by the injured man without stopping until another individual, of Samaritan background (hence the saying “Good Samaritan”), stopped and offered help.

King used this story to highlight the difference between an outer law and an inner law, “man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love.” For example, he described how Christian missionary efforts fail when they’re based on pity rather than true compassion, highlighting a difference between doing something for another, with a note of paternalism, rather than with them as equals. In the story of the Good Samaritan, there was no rule making someone stop and help, no societal should or must, but the individual who stopped and helped appeared to be pulled to do so by an inner law, an internal compass not based on an external code, book, or tangible definition of right and wrong.

I often contemplate this notion of an internal compass or inner law, particularly in the realm of things like Love, Happiness, and Beauty. No book can tell you what these experiences are. External sources can describe or symbolize them with words or images and point you in their direction (a finger pointing at the moon), but the true answer arises as an internal feeling that only you can gauge and attune to.

So, how do you know your internal compass? How and where do you feel it in your body? How do you know when you are not aligned with it? And how do you course correct to re-align in any given situation?

Using your
creative imagination,

what does your
internal compass
look like?

How will you
act in alignment with
your internal compass
today,
maybe especially
in situations
where there is
no clear external guidance?

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