We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
—The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is April, 1969. I am nine years old and on a field trip to the nature center with my fifth grade class. I have a fairly healthy crush on Mr. Smith, our teacher, who like my parents moved from Mississippi to Chicago. He leaves us at the picnic table during our lunch break for a while and comes back crying. He looks crumpled. He tells us that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is dead, cut down by a sniper’s bullet. We all feel as though we have been punched in our bellies. My life is changed, our nation grieves. My tears are hot, but not as hot as the fires burning all over the nation that evening. Grief turns to anger in many hearts. I don’t feel angry but sad and afraid, as I hide under my bed from flying bullets on the south side of Chicago. I also have a little girl’s hope that someday I can help America live out the dream, the dream of a place where the content of one’s character matters more than the color of one’s skin. The dream of a world in which we all feel connected, and in which every life is sacred.

When Dr. King preached his Christmas sermon on peace at Ebenezer Baptist Church where he served as pastor, it was 1967, and America was at war in Vietnam. King observed “. . . that there may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good.” Forty years later, and our leaders still think war serves as a negative good. They don’t quite get it that no individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and as long as we think we are isolated on this globe, we can and will kill the sons and daughters of our neighbors and they will kill ours.

I dream of peace, don’t you? I dream of peace that comes not after war, not after our enemies have been annihilated, not after we have conquered land and plundered the goods. I dream of peace that comes from negotiation, from diplomacy, from prayer, through love. I dream of peace that comes from recognizing that when God said, “You shall not kill,” God hoped that we would live into the truth that human beings are precious, that all life is precious, and we must hold it with care.

Pray for peace, people everywhere, pray for peace on earth, as it is in heaven.

I love you,
Jacqui