Speak Compassion

Each day, I sometimes realize I need my inspiration. Today, this was just what I needed to remind myself. The words of Dr. King. On my journey to Nonviolence, I sometimes have to stop and remind myself why I want to be nonviolent. These words were what I needed to be reminded. For each time in our lives when someone speaks of us in a hateful way, calls us names, insults us, we have two choices: We can respond in love and stop the chain of violence or we can fire back with more names. The first choice leaves us the chance to have an ally, the second surely an enemy. I don’t really think we need a world filled with enemies, so I would like to choose the first choice. Fire back with love.

Nonviolent resistance avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. <b>To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world.</b> Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.

Martin Luther King, Jr.