Beloved Community

Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957

 

Today was our annual Beloved Community breakfast which is our way of honoring the memory of Dr. King and his dream.  It’s a great time of just being family together, and of reflecting on peace. 

On the first Sunday after the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, and for every single Sunday until today we have lit a candle for peace and sung the World Peace Prayer.  Today that candle was extinguished in honor of the December 2011 withdrawal of troops from Iraq.  In its place we lit a number of candles for other wars, other conflicts, other injustices that we each shared, and we will continue to light our candle and sing each week. 

World Peace Prayer

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, From despair to hope, from fear to trust, lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, let peace fill our universe.

Still all the angry cries, still all the angry guns, Still now your people die, earth's sons and daughters. Let Justice roll, let mercy pour down, come and teach us Your way of compassion.

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, From despair to hope, from fear to trust, lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, let peace fill our universe.

So many lonely hearts, so many broken lives, longing for love to break into their darkness. Come, teach us love, come, teach us peace, come and teach us Your way of compassion.

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, From despair to hope, from fear to trust, lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, let peace fill our universe.

Let justice ever roll, let mercy fill the earth, let us begin to grow into your people. We can be love, we can be peace, we can be Your way of compassion.

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, From despair to hope, from fear to trust, lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, let peace fill our universe.

I feel so blessed to be a part of this truly beloved community.