So I've been reading this book Called
No Turning Back, about a man (
Gurdon Brewster) who spent a summer working for
Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, GA. while Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. were copastors there. It is a great book so far, and I would definately recommend reading it, but since I am personally trying to not hate certain people, this chapter got to me.
Brewster has just encountered a difficult situation and is talk with MLK Jr. about how to not hate raciest people, and how you can still love them after the hurtful things they say and do. This was their discussion.
He began to talk about hate and love. “Hate will build up in you until it explodes in violence. You must meet the force of hate with the force of love, or you will be consumed by hatred. You must meet the force of hate with the force of love.” It was hard for me to imagine how I could do that.
“You have three choices,” he continued. “Only three. You can adjust yourself so that you go along with their oppression and hatred, like the Hebrews speaking out against Moses because they would rather resign themselves to oppression than struggle for their freedom. Or you can fight violence with violence, but an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. The way of violence is both impractical and immoral. It seeks to kill people, not convert them. It leaves bitterness and brutality in its wake.” I had read some of these words in his writing before, but hearing him say them directly to me carried a tremendous force.
“But there is a third way – nonviolence resistance. Nonviolent resistance against evil.” Evil must be resisted, he explained. The struggle is against the evil system, not against those corrupted by the system.
“How did you get to that position of nonviolent resistance?”
He had started in Montgomery by emphasizing Christian love. The Sermon on the Mount guided him. It was those words of Jesus that first inspired blacks in the Montgomery bus boycott. Soon Gandhi’s ideas made sense. Not passive resistance but nonviolent resistance to evil. The one who passively accepts evil is as guilty as the one who perpetuates evil. The aim was not to defeat and humiliate white people but to win them over to friendship and understanding. Nonviolence, in the last analysis, is not a technique or a strategy; it is a way of live.
“Passive resistance,” he added, “is easily misinterpreted, as if it were merely passive, not requiring courage and strength. Some people always find it easier to pick up the gun.”
I wondered if I had it within me to change so completely, to turn my hatred and anger into love, to turn my temptation to violent action into acts of compassion, to turn my search for an effective strategy into a way of life. How could I accomplish that?
“You must get discouraged,” I said. “How do you keep from discouragement and despair?”
“You have to decide whose work this is. Is it your work or God’s work? If it is just you,” he went on, “then when the road gets too steep you stumble and fall and turn back. If it is God’s work, you’ve part of a larger force for good. You meet setback with calm assurance. You believe you are part of a larger purpose.”
“Is that what happened to you that night in Montgomery when your house was bombed?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. Then he told me about the crisis that changed his life. His house was bombed; he was at the end of his powers. “I just told God I was afraid. I couldn’t face the struggle alone.” Suddenly, he said, he felt the presence of God. And he heard a voice saying, “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever.” After that he was ready to face anything.
There was a long pause. There was so much I wanted to ask. He broke the silence again. “Remember,” he said, “the struggle is not against bad individuals. It is against evil systems.” He spoke of segregation and how it affected passenger who rode the bus to and from work each day. Good people get caught up in evil systems and act in evil ways. If you use one evil system to fight another, all you do is compound the evil in the universe. When he spoke about confronting evil his voice began to rise.
“How do you break the power of evil?” he asked. “Only with the power of good.” He paused again. “It is never the right time for an evil system to change. Change is always too fast. Change is always at the wrong time…..”
I got to play with these.....
And I not only got to take pictures of, but also managed to hold/play with Alashia!
