I’m still tired, maybe what I need is a caffeine IV drip. Maybe what I need is to make breakfast and drink coffee before I write. That’s an idea. I’m going to try it. Maybe I’ll think of something to write about as I eat and watch TV. I always watch TV when I eat. I’m back. As soon as I finished my second cup of coffee I fell asleep. This is getting bad. I just saw that I had only poured the second cup and didn’t drink it. I just finished it and now the magic is coursing through my veins giving me the power of Thor. Or maybe Underdog.
Today is Martin Luther King Day and I always honor it by reading or watching something by him and asking My Gentle Readers to do the same. Today it’s the Six Principles of Nonviolence from his first book, Stride Towards Freedom.
- Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active non-violent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally. It is always persuading the opponent of righteousness of your cause.
- Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The end result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation. The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
- Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims, and not evil people. The non-violent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people.
- Nonviolence holds that suffering educates and reforms. Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation. Nonviolence accepts violence if necessary, but will never inflict it. Nonviolence willingly accepts the consequences of its acts. Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities. Suffering has the power to convert the enemy when reason fails.
- Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body. Non-violent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative. Non-violent love gives willingly, knowing that the return might be hostility. Non-violent love is active, not passive. Non-violent love is unending in its ability to forgive in order to restore community. Non-violent love does not sink to the level of the hater. Love for the enemy is how we demonstrate love for ourselves. Love restores community and resists injustice. Nonviolence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.
- Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The non-violent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win. Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.
I’m a child of the sixties and MLK was my political hero. Too many people have forgotten his message of nonviolence. I look at Facebook and see post after post violating the spirits of principles two and three. People don’t want to create the Beloved Community; they want to win and often seem to care the most about the other side losing. I can hear people objecting that times are different now. They are. Sherriff Clark is not ordering a cavalry attack on peaceful protestors. Watch this.
Nonviolence is not passive. Nonviolence is not accepting wrongs. Nonviolence is powerful because it is nonviolent. It makes it clear who has right on their side. Might does not make right, right makes might. “We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.” ― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait
You want to celebrate MLK Day, do two things; be a better person than you were yesterday and work to make the world a better place tomorrow.
Wise Madness 