I did not attend the annual MLK, Jr. Breakfast this morning: six more inches of snow and a knee ache kept me from it. I wanted to go and hear Rev. Carl Balark (a colleague down in Providence). So I read an essay from Strength to Love, my favorite, Pilgrimage to Nonviolence. Here are some excerpts:
The gospel at its best deal with the whole man, not only his soul but also his body, not only his spiritual well-being but also his material well-being. A religion that professes a concern from the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion.
***
I came to see for the first time that the Christian doctrine of love , operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence, is one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
***
If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our day of space vehicles and ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence.
That this man won the Nobel Peace Prize is no surprise at all - for me, what is a surprise is that he has a Federal Holiday in our nation named after him and a soon to be National Memorial in the nation's capital.
May we continue to develop the strength to love...
I did find a link to an artist who has created "Icons of the Movement." Her creations are well worth a skip over to see.
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