“World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., December 1964
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, i speak again of a peacemaker with a passion for justice who still guides us today on the arc of healing justice, of one who was committed to a world of peace built on justice and guided by love so powerfully developed in his Beyond Vietnam speech, maybe his most important speech…
in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, King said “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” What a clear challenge to the punishment paradigm that incarcerates so many, sentencing people to death by incarceration and executing others in our name. King is calling us to evolve, to imagine a different approach to conflict, one that promotes healing and is grounded in love…
Dr. King also reminds us that we must take courageous action in order to realize our visions of a more just world. In 1968 in his final speech, King said“[t]here comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.” this statement came from a difficult personal pilgrimage, a dark night of the soul he struggled with that strtched him to the max and brought him into the stillpoint of peace…
what an beautiful synchronicity that this real-eyes-ation spoken in his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address was delivered the night before he was assassinated in 1968 and so much of it holds just as true today as it was 54 years ago… regarding his wanting to live a few years in the 2nd half of the 20th century, he says, “Now that’s a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men in some strange way are responding. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: ‘We want to be free.’ And another reason I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. (Yes) Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.”
in his triumphant finale, King proclaims, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life—longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land.I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
may we all get to the mountaintop, be the promised land and wage peace and justice and love with our every thought, word, deed and breath, existence still depends on our being/doing just that…