“At the center of non-violence stands the principal of love.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Continuing my reflections on quotes related to conscience and peace, I wanted to explore Martin Luther King’s observation that non-violence, true non-violence, is founded upon love. I started writing on this a couple weeks ago, but found that the simplicity of the statement made my words appear unnecessary. A couple of starts produced nothing satisfying; I pretty much decided that King’s words should stand on their own and move on to another quote. Love & non-violence are so closely tied together that any commentary thereupon seems, at best, superfluous.
Today, however, I found myself coming back to these words from a different direction. One of the books I’m currently reading (I generally have four or five going at the same time) is The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth, by Gerald G. May, MD. May’s book explores the spiritual relationship between St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross, both sixteenth century Carmelites, reformers, writers, mystics, and subsequently Doctors of The Church. Teresa was, as May explains, John’s mentor & confidant, his “spiritual mother,” nourishing him with her images and visions of the spiritual life (32). Taken together, their visionary understanding of humanity’s unity with God forms the basis of a Christian spirituality that sounds much the same as those of Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Sikh, and other faith traditions. Teresa writes that while in prayer God told her to “Seek yourself in Me, and in yourself seek Me” (43; from her poem “Buscando a Dios,” “Seeking God”). This itself seems to me a logical extension of Christ’s words,
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans” (Jn 14: 16-18)
…keeping in mind that, as Catholics, the Spirit is one aspect of the Trinity that is God. God has His home in us, and we in him: “God in me, and I in God” (45).
May goes on to discuss Teresa’s & John’s belief that the spiritual journey on which we find ourselves is not truly a journey of discovery but one of becoming conscious of that which already exists: our unity with God. This might make for another posting in the future, but I want to bring this back to King’s connection of non-violence & love. As I read May’s writing, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favorite lines from the New Testament: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1Jn: 16: NAB). Love itself is an aspect of God, so by our very nature we have, at the core of our being, both the Divine and its aspect, Love. This is the same Love that gave rise to and that animates all of creation, the Love that is the active, creative nature of God.
As in so many things spiritual, however, we grasp only the shadow of Divine Love, though we bandy the word “love” about rather freely. When a person is truly and deeply in love (Anne & I celebrated our 31st anniversary last week, so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being deeply in love), he or she begins to know what Love truly is, although it is akin to the scent of a rose hinting at the reality of the flower: “For now we see through a glass, darkly”(1 Cor: 12: I like this, the King James version, better). The love that we feel for another, for humanity, for all of creation is the image of and a pathway to the Love that is God that sits at the center of our being. Love is a divine gravity that moves us towards God.
This brings me to the subject of non-violence. As above, love & non-violence go hand-in-hand. Love (capital L) is of God, the Divine, The Source, The Eternal Essence. God The Creator, who is Love, is within His/Her/Its creation (we can also say in love with His/Her/Its creation). Even in our human state, we understand that loving something created of oneself–a child being the best example–precludes even the notion of violence. Christ teaches this in the seventh chapter of Matthew: “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish?” (v 9-10). How much more does the Love that is God negate all forms of violence against any of His (/Her/Its) creation? It appears that violence is by its nature an act against God. Violence is blasphemy.
So if God is Love, and God-Love dwells in us, then we are called to non-violence just as we are called to be conscious of God’s home in us. That humanity has become, in many people’s eyes, synonymous with violence speaks more to our inability to perceive the Divine within, our “fallen state,” than in the reality of our nature. It is, in fact, human nature to be nonviolent, not the other way around.
Teresa, John, and countless & uncounted saints & mystics–Christian & non-Christian alike–came to know that seeking God within oneself is neither easy nor comfortable; it follows that embracing non-violence, which is embracing Love, is also a challenge like no other that we face in this lifetime. Non-violence, like Love, is an active principle. Neither lie still awaiting our embrace. Cesar Chavez said that “Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak… Non-violence is hard work.” Just as lovers continually express their love for one-another, we must continually express the non-violence that lies within us.
As Christians–and as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., even secularists–we are called to a prophetic role in the world. We are called to be a continual reminder that violence is always a sign of failure, that violence is against our nature, that violence ultimately begets more violence. We are called to be, in the words of another saint, instruments of peace.
