How can I serve? A path of spiritual activism

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.

If you are coming to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you are coming because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall—think of it, always.

Around three decades ago I traveled from Tennessee to Washington, D.C. to join a protest against the war in Vietnam. My housing had been pre-arranged; the group I was traveling with would be staying with a family of Quakers. The weather that weekend in November tested our resolve: bone-chilling temperatures and a strong wind out of the north. Nonetheless, we marched, we sang; half a million strong, we came together confidently in common cause.

Late on the final day of the weekend, my brother-in-law, Johnny, and I found ourselves in a group of agitators at the Justice Department. I was caught up in the excitement of the moment—until the D.C. police started discharging tear gas canisters into the crowd. We beat a hasty retreat, and as I sat excitedly recounting the tale of the confrontation, I noticed a troubled glance from the elderly man whose hospitality we were enjoying, not disapproving, but gravely concerned. Years later I would remember that expression as I read the words of Marianne Williamson: “I am of a generation which thought that we could bring peace to the world, and we didn’t think it mattered if we ourselves were angry. What we learned is that an angry generation cannot bring peace.” (more…)

Saturday, July 20th, 2002