Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr. I have thought about this quote over and over again each time something more brutal and more violent occurs.
While it sounds so simplistic – let’s just all love each other, hold hands, and hug, I don’t believe that it is simple at all. Even when I think about the people I love most it is easy to see that I don’t love them well all the time. So it must be hard than it sounds. I also believe it is the key.
Let me start by saying that nothing that has gone down in the past two weeks has been okay. Dwayne Wade, in the opening before the ESPY’s said it well, “The racial profiling has to stop,” he said. “The shoot to kill mentality has to stop. Not seeing the value of black and brown bodies has to stop. But also the retaliation has to stop. The endless gun violence in places like Chicago, Dallas, not to mention in Orlando, it has to stop.” It has to stop. But it hasn’t. So what can we, as individuals do to help make it stop?
The only way I see for us to help make it stop, is to start where we are, to start in our homes, our workplaces, and our communities. Not one of us can change the world. But we can, and we must, change what we can.
We live in a world where people are angry, and scared, and disconnected from each other. That’s a lousy mix. Anger and fear combined with a lack of connection to others leads people to say and do desperate, and often tragic, things. If we have any hope of fixing this trend, we are going to have to change the climate. We need to change the prevailing thoughts and feelings from anger into forgiveness, from fear into understanding, and from disconnection to connection.
Here’s how I see it. Our words and our actions have consequences. When we treat people with respect and kindness, whether they deserve it or not, we have made a difference in their life, a positive difference. When we treat people contempt, whether they deserve it or not, we have made a difference in their life, a negative difference.
We either add to the load someone is carrying, or lighten their burden just a bit.
What follows are words I wrote ten days ago, but they are still valid and I don’t know how else to say it. “All of this posturing, and defending of thoughts and ideals and beliefs, has so far divided us that we cannot figure out how to come together to work at a solution that might help the anger and hate that leads to these horrendous tragedies. The left has a solution, the right has a solution, and never the two shall meet. We can’t have a rational conversation about anything, because everything is the fault of the other side. We are truly not even hearing what the other side has to say – just because they are on the other side. And it is killing us. It is killing people because of faith, lifestyle, color, and job title. It is killing hundreds of people, in our country alone. And still, we rant and rave, and refuse to sit down at a table with our neighbor because they don’t share our views. Again, let me say clearly, this does not mean we give up our views and beliefs. This does not mean that we accept actions that we believe our wrong. It means that we listen. We treat others as Christ would treat them. (Matthew 7:12) Our actions will always speak louder than our words so, we listen and we try to show the love of Christ by living in a way that attracts others to that light. (Matthew 5:16)
We must quit assigning blame to everyone except ourselves. We must stop talking about how if just the other side would listen, this would stop. We must find a way to make a difference, one person, one meal, one conversation at a time. It is not laws, or politicians, or churches that are killing are nation. It is hatred and division and intolerance, and please hear me say, that it runs both ways. The hate, the division, and the intolerance run deep on both sides, and from most people on those sides. If you are reading this and thinking, “Yeah, I know those kind of people,” then you are missing the point. It is time to look inward and ask, “Who do I hate with my words, my actions, and my non-actions? Who do I refuse to treat well because they don’t agree with me? Who I am completely intolerant of”? It is time to answer those questions without bias, without defending ourselves because we are right, without blaming the other side because they are intolerant of us. It is time to start looking at what we each can do, individually, to try and fix this mess.”
The only thing I know to do to try and fix this mess is to love my neighbor – to say kind words, to do random acts of kindness, to look people in the eyes and really listen when they talk, to respond with kindness, even when I have been wronged, to let go of my own anger and hand it over to God so that I don’t act a fool because I’m angry. The difference we can make starts in our homes, at our workplaces, and in our community. We must relentlessly pursue kindness, and respect, and love. We must.
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