“THE HOPE OF A SECURE AND LIVABLE WORLD LIES WITH DISCIPLINED NONCONFORMISTS WHO ARE DEDICATED TO JUSTICE, PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD.” – REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
We’ve seen a lot of inspiring quotes from the Rev. Dr. King, especially as his 92nd birthday is approaching, and they stop us in our tracks, don’t they? There’s something about the weight of each and every word, the way they resonate, even today, and the simple and irrefutable truth of them that takes our breath away.
Much more important than his words, though, was the action he took.
Right now, we’re reflecting on what we’re called to do. Not just in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on January 18th, but to look ahead beyond that day as citizens of communities and humans on the planet. Big things and small, at home and across the world, as one person and as a part of a larger movement. It’s all at once overwhelming, scary, exciting, and beautiful.
With all of this going through our heads, maybe it would help tell you more about how that quote from the Rev. Dr. King inspires us?
The Simplicity Family (which is the name we use for our team, our members, and all the rest of our chosen family that we’ve unofficially adopted over the years) has always been committed to helping people. Even though we grew up as a glorious mish-mash of a few different credit unions across our history, every one of those credit union stories starts with a group of smart, compassionate humans deciding they’re going to work together and help the people around them.
People Helping People is just what credit unions do.
And yes, we love watching the right savings account, or a new loan or some other service you didn’t even know existed open up a door to less stress, more money, and just generally a more awesome life for our members. That stuff’s our bread and butter, and we’re living for it every day.
But there’s this whole other part of the Simplicity Family that we don’t talk about. And no, it’s not the goofy uncle that you don’t want to sit by at Christmas. (DON’T. PULL. HIS. FINGER.) It’s the way we don’t talk enough about our community service. It’s not that we’re not proud. It’s just that we find it really, really (really) hard to brag when we feel like we’re just doing the right thing.
We try our absolute best to be the “Disciplined Nonconformists” that the Rev. Doctor talked about. We do it by dedicating our time and talents where it seems like we’re needed most and NOT turning down a chance to help just because we can’t connect it to a line item in our budget. Then, after all of that doing-the-right-thing-ing, we go back to work to, well, do more things to help people.
And yes, we see the irony of writing a blog to tell you that we want you to know that we do all kinds of nice things and never tell you about it, don’t worry.
But we guess this is our way of saying that the Rev. Dr. King’s words aren’t lost on us, and we do our best, every day of the year, to live up to them.
