In his keynote at a Lutheran youth gathering in 1961, the Rev. Martin Luther King spoke about three kinds of love described in the Greek language. One of these, agape, he called the love of God operating in the human heart. “Love is the most durable power in all the world, and it is through love that we will solve this problem that is destroying our nation and the nations of the world,” he said.
Many in the African American community who knew him well called him the “love doctor.” He banned all weapons and any form of retaliation. When his bodyguards asked him how they would protect him with no guns, he answered, “With love.”
We rarely reflect on this mantra as it is much easier to rest in the comfort of a dream, but this love thing takes work. Love has everything to do with how people of faith become the difference they want to see.
Today we remember Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury, died 1109. This excerpt is from a January 2016 post, “His Mantra Was Love,” by Valora Starr in a Women of the ELCA blog.
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