1/18/22
“O God, make us willing to do your will, come what may. Increase the number of persons of good will and moral sensitivity. Give us renewed confidence in nonviolence and the way of love as taught by You....
God, grant that we wage the struggle with dignity and discipline. May all who suffer oppression in this world reject the self-defeating method of retaliatory violence and choose the method that seeks to redeem....
God grant that right here in America and all over this world, we will choose the high way; a way in which people will live together as brothers [and sisters]. A way in which the nations of the world will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks (see Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3). A way in which everyone will respect the dignity and worth of all human beings. A way in which every nation will allow justice to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream (see Amos 5:24). A way in which people will do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (see Micah 6:8). A way in which people will be able to stand up, and in the midst of oppression, in the midst of darkness and agony, they will be able to stand there and love their enemies, bless those persons that curse them, pray for those individuals that despitefully use them (see Matthew 5:44)....
We also come, O God, with an awareness. The fact that we have not always given our lives to that which is high and noble. In the midst of all of the high and noble aspects of justice, we followed injustice. We stand amid the forces of truth and yet we deliberately lie. We stand amid the compelling urgency of the Lord of Love... and yet we live our lives so often in the dungeons of hate. For all of these sins, O God, forgive [us]. And in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, give us penetrating vision, broad understanding, power of endurance and abiding faith, and save us from the paralysis of crippling fear. And O God, we ask You to help us to work with renewed vigor for a warless world and for a brother- [and sister]-hood that transcends race or color. Amen.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.