I woke up this morning thinking about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wrote this on 11/8/17. It is still too relevant.

Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929 and assassinated on April 4, 1968. At the time of his death he was 39 years old. I thought of all he had accomplished by that early age. Until Malala Yousafzai (at age 17), he was the youngest person to have received the Nobel Peace Prize (at age 35). I spent some time evaluating my own life (to be continued).
My favorite of the five books Dr. King wrote is Strength to Love. I felt in reading this book that I really got to know the inner man.

He truly struggled with the notion of non-violence. The non-violent stance was not necessarily an easy one for him to take. Yet, he saw non-violence and Love as necessary weapons for the mass destruction of hate. I use the capital L in spelling Love when speaking of Dr. King, because the type of Love he spoke of is one that requires the bigness of what it is to be human. Dr. King in my view was a Spiritual Revolutionary.
In light of all that has and is occurring in our world today, I plan to read Strength to Love and the Letter from a Birmingham Jail again. As I read, I want to see and listen for what that gives me as I continue my gentle walk on this earth. Below are a few of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quotes from Strength to Love:

• “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.”
• “On the parable of the Good Samaritan: “I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
• “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies– or else? The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
  —

Baruch Bashan:”The blessings already are”.