painting of George Floyd by Lukas Carlson

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love & happiness newsletter

June 11, 2020

The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I recently posted this on my FaceBook page:

At the root of racism, injustice and violence are ignorance, fear, and a lack of imagination and love.

May all people be happy.

May we live in love.

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I also posted a link to Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522wcqUlS0Y), along with these “comments”:

Love is creative understanding goodwill for all men.

—from Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies”

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In this world,

hate never yet dispelled hate.

Only love dispels hate.

This is the law,

ancient and inexhaustible.

—Buddha, from the Dhammapada

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Who loves not, knows not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:8

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Love to faults is always blind,

Always is to joy inclin’d,

Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,

And breaks all chains from every mind.

—William Blake

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Blake also said:

Every thing that lives is Holy

and:

Children of the future Age

Reading this indignant page,

Know that in a former time

Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

and:

Art Degraded Imagination Denied War Governed the Nations

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Here are some more thoughts:

there is one human family

we all belong

we need each other more than we know

we came here to love and be loved

at the core of every human being is something radiantly beautiful

Thich Nhat Han speaks of “interbeing”

at the most fundamental level, we are not separate from each other

or from the flowing river of life

Again, Blake:

Can I see another’s woe

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another’s grief,

And not seek for kind relief?….

No no never can it be,

Never, never can it be.

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In 1855, Walt Whitman said:

Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion….

In all people I see myself, none more, and not one a barley-corn less….

I speak the password primeval, I give the sign of democracy,

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

—from “Song of Myself”

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One of the best books I’ve read in recent years is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Written as a letter to his son, it’s powerful and poignant. Highly recommended! If you’d like to learn more about the racist dimension of our society, especially in relation to the criminal justice system, you might read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and watch the documentary “13th,” by Ava DuVernay. 

Here’s a link to Cornel West speaking about love and justice: 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/06/10/cornel-west-george-floyd-cooper-ac360-vpx.cnn

I’ll close this issue with passages from Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies”:

We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way….

So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom.

—delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama, November 17, 1957, from the book A Knock at Midnight