What would the Movement be without love?

Many of the veterans in the Civil Rights Movement adopted non-violence as a strategy in the battle for voting rights and desegration. Those who were most affected by the non-violent Movement, such as John Lewis, for example, described non-violence as a way of life, beyond any mere strategy to win the attention of a sympathetic audience. Lewis built the rest of his life around the principles of non-violence; Satyagraha is one of those principles--steadfastness of truth--and redemptive suffering, the idea that we are made pure through pain. Possibly the most affective principle is that of agape love, which Dr. T spoke of a couple of posts ago.



Unconditional love. A love that continues no matter how much a person is hurt by another. The veterans of the Civil Rights Movement who adopted the principles of non-violence as a life style understood that love would be the catalyst for change. Love for our enemies is a great sacrifice in that we must be willing to sacrifice some of our own pride for the sake of unity. Unconditional love seems impractical in this day when too many of us must do what we have to do to "get ours."



While it seems that unconditional love is an impossibility at times, imagine what the non-violent brothers and sisters must have experienced as they faced their enemies and they were beaten repeatedly by the very same people the veterans intended to win over with love. Yet they deliberately and intentionally met their attackers as they knew it was necessary for the nation to see the reality of racism and to turn their attackers into brothers.



This must have taken unbelievable strength. It is impossible in the minds of many of us today to imagine the kind of courage it takes to achieve this kind of love for those who hate us. It is hard enough for many us to love one another. It seems that it only takes one moment of weakness to destroy a friendship. Without the possibility of forgiveness, especially when it is sought by the offending party, then the relationship is superficial. Each person would not willing to be themselves, for fear that the friendship would end in the wake of an exhorting word or angry look or even a difference in opinion. The relationship would exist only on a superficial level and very little or no growth would result between its members.



The movement would have been impossible if the veterans were only willing to hold superficial relationships. The threat of death would easily crumble the fight for justice and reduce the battlecry for freedom to a barely audible whisper. If those who worked in the Movement were not willing to be real in the relationships they had with each other, why in the world would the rest of America care about the ideals they were risking their lives for?



"That's all I have to say about that..."