The quotation below was  recently read on the morning announcements at the school where I teach, and though I’d heard it before, this time it made me sit up and take notice.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s easy to hear this quotation, nod and think, “Oh yes, that’s so true,” and then go about our lives doing precisely the opposite. Â Fact is, it is intensely difficult to answer hate with love. Â And though I don’t (to my knowledge, anyway!) have a lot of people out there who hate me, I can still relate to this quotation. Â It is not easy to answer scorn with gentleness. Â It is not easy to answer snarkiness with kindness. Â It’s not easy to answer rudeness with politeness. Â And yet if we want to break the negative cycle, we have to try.
The people who loved Dr. King lost him, forty-three years ago today, on a hotel balcony in Memphis. Â And in that tragedy, they had to decide how to respond: with more hate, or with love. Â It must have been extraordinarily difficult to find that love; I know it would have been nearly impossible for me. Â But Dr. King called us to be better versions of ourselves, knowing that this was the only way to make a better world. Â And his words are an echo of the greatest teacher of all, that man named Jesus, who was love and light himself.
So my challenge for the week is this: How, in my thoughts and words, can I use light to drive out darkness? Â In honor of Dr. King, I’m really going to try.
