Love: Light in Darkness

Martin Luther King said:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: 

only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate: 

only love can do that."

Whether we show our love in a card or a kiss, or buying The Big Issue, we are lighting up the world around us.

At times I have felt like I'm slipping into the darkness, other times it's a constant cloud over my head casting shadows over everything I see. I am paranoid, frustrated, irritated, disappointed, cynical...and what good does that do me? I just make my cloud bigger and more concentrated. It bears down on me, blocking out the light. Clouding my judgement. 

At times, I know the sun exists but can't feel it's warmth or see its light. I think everybody else does and in fact they are stealing from me, what should be my portion of the heat and light. Then I realise I am my own sunscreen, hiding myself from the harm I fear but then missing out on the positive attributes of sunshine and light. In protecting myself I am creating barriers. I am trying to block pain but lose all feeling. The barriers I put up against the hurt I am afraid of also shield me from any feelings of safety, calm, satisfaction, joy and love. 

So I chip away at the walls between me and others, and as the darkness fades and the light replaces it, I can see more. I'm coming out of the prison of my own making. It's brighter. I'm lighter. I'm free.

Looking for the Light

If we think the worst of people and treat them that way it can be no surprise when we get the worst from them.  Part of getting the best from people is thinking the best of them and treating them that way. If we stop concentrating on what we hate about people and instead think of what we love about them it will be a brighter world. Maybe not just for us, but for us all.
  
If, as Martin Luther King said, only love and light can drive out hate and darkness. Then we must seek love and light or we just perpetuate the very hate and darkness we are trying to escape from.

So when our minds become overcast with doubt and the darkness of hatred clouds our judgement, we must look beyond that horizon and look for the light of love.

Doing the Right Thing

'It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.'

(Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre)

Or to paraphrase the Bible:

Turn the other cheek.

However in the Bible it is providing an alternative tack to take to 'An eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth' . So rather than seeking revenge in equal measure to the crime committed, the advice appears to be to provide instead an opportunity of equal measure for the offence to be repeated. This time not out of anger or perhaps in the cold light of day. Is it providing an opportunity for the person to do the right thing? Is it to give them a second change?

Otherwise we are saying that people who suffer domestic violence should just put up with it. Or is it saying that it is as equally ridiculous to use the mantra 'An eye for an eye and an tooth for a tooth' as it is to say that if some one hits you on one cheek that you should give them the other to hit too. Or perhaps it is expanding on the idea that revenge is self-perpetuating and will eventually come back to bite you.

So what is the 'right thing'?

• I've heard parents tell their kids to hit the bully back.
• I've heard the tit-for-tat goings on of messy divorces.
• I've heard the neighbourhood ASBO threatening battles.
• I've heard the sentences prisoners judges and juries have doled out for crimes.

What is the difference between punishment and revenge? Does it matter? Do either make the world a better place?

I remember a 7 year old saying to me how 'horrible' someone was all the time, that the boy just didn't know how to 'behave'  and everybody said he was 'naughty' so nobody liked him or wanted to play with him and he got into 'trouble' a lot.

We talked about how 'sad' it was that he should make people feel like that but we also discussed how sad it was that he had no friends and how that must feel. But out of the conversation, the most important question was:

'How can someone know how to behave if they are not shown?'

 

If every time someone behaves in the manner in which they have been brought up or are accustomed to,  they are punished or experience some other form or reinforcement of negative behaviours how will they ever know what appropriate behaviour looks or feels like or have the positive association of reinforcement?

Its trust. How can we expect people to do the right thing if we don't do it ourselves? What will they learn from us?

• If he hits me and I hit him back. I am saying it is ok to hit. 
• If he attacks my home and I bomb his back. I'm saying its ok to bomb.
• If he kills someone and he is given the death penalty. I am saying its ok to kill.

It's not ok to hit, bomb or kill, whatever my justification...whether by tradition, law or military force. We must overcome our baser, immature and reactionary natures. Evolution can't come fast enough. 

Turn the other cheek. If only to give yourself time to think of what to do next, time to develop a plan, a way of dealing with the issues at the root of the problem. To prevent recurrences of the same problem for the same reasons.

Like Gandhi said:

 'An eye for and eye only makes the whole world blind.'

And as Martin Luther King Jnr said:

'Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert.'

 (King, 1958, p.213)

52 Quotes on War & Peace  and  some thoughts on Hope

 

King, M, L. (1958) 'Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story', Harper & Row, New York