In looking for quotes to accompany a meditation on awareness, acceptance and action, I found that Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke most clearly to me:
Awareness: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
Acceptance: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
Action: He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
From Voices for Creative Nonviolence:
"And in Bellingham, WA, our friend Mary Mele is planning to honor the 14 million Yemenis in danger of death by famine with a “Women Fasting for the Children of Yemen” event – for fourteen hours on Nov 14, she will set up 14 chairs in front of her city’s Federal Building – women will be invited to sit in them for an hour, then fast for fourteen hours."
3 comments:
On the Awareness quote, I tend to agree. I may be wrong, but it really doesn't matter because I would rather live in hope than not.
Great quotes, thanks for posting them. These are hard times, and it's difficult to be brave, but reading the words of MLK do help.
That you for these hopeful words. I have recently been steeped in kingian principles of nonviolence, such a beautiful vision of what our world may yet be.
Thank you. As I stepped outside the back door this morning, the frosty dry air took my breath away while in the background I could hear a voice on the radio telling us that one in four Europeans vote populist (extreme right wing). I wasn't sure whether it was really the cold air that made me gasp.
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