"The choice is no longer between violence and
non-violence," said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As resources dwindle, the climate warms and nuclear arms proliferate,
even more clearly now than in King's time, "the choice is between non-violence and
non-existence."
The quality of life and the very existence of all of
us depends on the security and well-being of each person, especially of those
we label criminal or enemy. The
admonition from the Hebrew book of Proverbs to give food to our enemies when
they are hungry and drink to them when they are thirsty, echoed in the Sermon
on the Mount and the universal Golden Rule to treat others as we would be
treated, is no romantic, unobtainable dream.
"Love is the only solution" to the human predicament, said Dorothy
Day. Love in our time has become a hard,
pragmatic, gritty requisite for survival.
Brian Terrell, a Catholic Worker and Co-Coordinator of Voices for
Creative Nonviolence, will be released from prison on May 24, 2013. After that he can be reached at brian@vcnv.org.
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