“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” –Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Strength to Love

I went to sleep last night thinking and praying and feeling the heaviness of the incomprehensible pain and senseless evil of another school shooting. I went to sleep with the despair of knowing these deaths come in the wake of the senseless evil of the racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, NY, and the hundreds of other mass shootings in this nation so far this year. I went to sleep thinking there was nothing to say, no way to respond, only the hopelessness and helplessness of despair. 

I woke up this morning with Dr. King’s words on my mind. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

The power of evil comes through weapons and violence and separation and death. The power of love comes through kindness and compassion and strength to draw near, to trust in the one who entered into the darkness of death and overcame it with love and light.  

Love looks like weeping. Love looks like caring for one another. Love looks like praying for the victims and their families. And love looks like taking action to change our laws to reduce access to lethal weapons and to increase accountability for those who purchase guns.  

Now is the time for mourning and lament and rage against evil and hatred and violence and innocent lives taken far too soon. 

And now is a time for resisting the darkness and the hatred and the violence with love.

More with Amy Julia:

• Love in a Time of Fear
• The Importance of Teaching Children Kindness at a Very Young Age
• S5 E14 | The Beauty and Wounding of This Here Flesh with Cole Arthur Riley
• A Glimpse of Hope for Healing the Wounds of Racism

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