All who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice are nonviolence…the final end of history. Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rather they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history.
Love listens. It is its first task to listen.
All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being.
When Jesus appears to the disciples while they are hiding behind locked doors after the crucifixion, his first words are, “Peace be with you!” (Luke 24:36-49). Luke tells us the disciples are “startled and frightened,” and to calm them—to give them the peace he just offered—Jesus shows them his hands and feet.
