By Karen Bufka

Strength to Love. What a phrase! It is worth repeating: Strength to Love. Strength to Love. Strength to Love.

Strength to Love is the title of a book by Martin Luther King, Jr. Have you read it? If not, run, don’t walk, to the nearest bookstore or library or to your computer to find a copy and read it. There are various places online where you can read it for free, but I recommend having a copy of your own so you can hold it, pick it up whenever you need it. I can’t seem to put my copy away on the shelf. It is always where I can see it. Really. It is food for the soul. It is also a manual about how to bring your heart and mind and soul into the world in order to change it.

Years ago, someone I was talking with for the first time recommended Strength to Love to me. Their recommendation was so heartfelt that I immediately went out and bought it. I got a used copy, the 1981 edition, which has a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the cover, eyes closed, hands clasped together, praying. The title and this image of prayer were so meaningful to me that it actually took me quite a long time to open the book. It was a profound teaching just to see the words, Strength to Love, and the image of him in prayer— praying for strength? Praying to be strong enough to love?

At last, I opened it. In the Foreword, Coretta Scott King says: “If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love. I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. This belief was the force behind all of my husband’s quests to eliminate social evil…”.

A little further on, she quotes him: “At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. The can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.”

In his sermon, Loving our Enemies, he says, “The meaning of love is not to be confused with some sentimental outpouring. Love is something much deeper than emotional bosh.” He explains the three words for love from the Greek New Testament: eros, “a sort of aesthetic or romantic love.” And philia, “a reciprocal love and the intimate affection and friendship between friends. We love those whom we like, and we love because we are loved.”

Then there is agape, “redemptive goodwill for all men. An overflowing love which seeks nothing in return, agape is the love of God operating in the human heart. At this level, we love men not because we like them, nor because their ways appeal to us, not even because they possess some type of divine spark: we love every man because God loves him. At this level, we love the person who does an evil deed, although we hate the deed that he does.” Wow. That kind of love would indeed take strength, wouldn’t it? More strength than you might believe you could find in yourself without some help.

Later in that sermon, he says: “To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you.”

In these chaotic times, it is a good idea to reach out for and hold fast to whatever helps us to remember what it means to be fully human. You don’t have to be a Christian, or an activist, to appreciate Strength to Love. You just have to be human and want to be the best human you can be.