Late night musings

So, I should be sleeping now, but as you might have noticed, I'm not. Instead, I'm doing interesting things like creating a self-portrait to be included as my picture (you know how I see myself rather than a pic of how I really am) and randomly looking at other people's blogs. Well, through this medium, I happened upon pictures of Baton Rouge. Talk about bittersweet. And through a circuitous route, I came to Martin Luther King's Nobel lecture. Here's an excerpt that I found particularly interesting...

" Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it."

My oh my... Can we not ALL learn something from this? Would that the leaders of the world (all of them) would sit down, give this a read, then a think. If they could open their minds even the width of the proverbial mustard seed, I suspect their world view would be radically altered. Alas, I don't think it'll be happening any time soon. The full speech by Dr. King was amazing, but this struck a particular chord with me tonight.

Peace.