“Let justice flow like rivers”.

People Have The Power, Dr Martin Luther King and Voices for Peace.

Dear Friend

Dr Martin Luther King is celebrated in January.

His message, one of equality and human togetherness. We need each other in this world. To fight is not the natural state of humanity, but a madness that inflicts harm on all, inviting our own destruction. The quote from Dr King’s famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial is no platitude. It speaks of the devastation visited upon both aggressor and victim.

Peace cannot come through violence.

The world is made hell by our own ignorance. Our species believing itself to be separate from life, separate from one another, we persist with our insane cruelties. We hurt ourselves when we hurt another.

What mad goals can justify these atrocities? War robs children of their childhood.

When we meet ourselves in another, we are stilled, humbled. Mothers and fathers, seeing something of themselves reflected in the eyes of their growing baby, enter into moments of quiet bliss. We see anew when we see through the eyes of children.

Who can bear to see through the eyes of the children in the rubble?

I often think of Nietzsche. The legend is that he died after witnessing a cab driver on the streets of Turin mercilessly flogging a horse. The horse trapped, exhausted, innocent. Perhaps it isn’t true, but the image is poignant. It tells a story.

What if we began to tell a different story?

Imagine if we are all joined together, our existence part of, not separate from one another. What if our voices join like tributaries of one mighty voice for peace. We do not call for peace as if it will be given us, we affirm it as the truth of who we are.

People have the power. Pattie sings it for us.

Musicians and artist in Gaza are singing for peace. Stephen Budd is a London based artist and manager. We know each other through our mutual love of music. He is raising funds to support Palestinian musicians.

What happens over there, in another part of the world, is as close to each one of us as we can imagine.

Love is the greatest power in the universe because it is the only power in the universe. Fear feeds on the absence of love. Our poets remind us of it. People, we have the power to love.

Despite the horrors.

Love is the power that brings peace and peace nurtures love.

Which other roads are there for us to walk together? When we reach for peace we find in within ourselves. It’s a journey without distance, and yet one which takes lifetimes.

But peace is here now.

We are the lucky ones.

My false self finds it hard to ask.

But I gave my word to Stephen.

As I’ve given my word to write.

If you are able to support artists in Palestine, the link to donate is below.

Help Musicians In Gaza Keep their Flame Alive

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey