"Facing the Challenge of a New Age"

Both Fearfully Opinionated and Kitana have commented recently, with deeply felt sorrow and some bitterness, on how people who graciously leave comments do not always, well, graciously do so. Fearfully Opinionated goes so far as to call his post a "rant" :) , which I would not agree. Perhaps a few words from Martin Luther King may shed some light:

A third challenge that stands before us is that of entering the new age with understanding goodwill. [...] There is the danger that those of us who have lived so long under the yoke of oppression, those of us who have been exploited and trampled over, those of us who have had to stand amid the tragic midnight of injustice and indignities will enter the new age with hate and bitterness. But if we retaliate with hate and bitterness, the new age will be nothing but a duplication of the old age. We must blot out the hate and injustice of the old age with the love and justice of the new.

[...]

Now I realize that in talking so much about love it is very easy to become sentimental. There is the danger that our talk about love will merely be empty words devoid of any practical and true meaning. But when I say love those who oppose you I am not speaking of love in a sentimental or affectionate sense. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. When I refer to love at this point I mean understanding goodwill. [...] we will be able to stand amid the radiant glow of the new age with dignity and discipline.

[...]

I am afraid that if I close at this point many will go away misinterpreting my whole message. I have talked about the new age which is fastly coming into being. I have talked about the fact that God is working in history to bring about this new age. There is the danger, therefore, that after hearing all of this you will go away with the impression that we can go home, sit down, and do nothing, waiting for the coming of the inevitable. You will somehow feel that this new age will roll in on the wheels of inevitability, so there is nothing to do but wait on it. If you get that impression you are the victims of a dangerous optimism. If you go away with that interpretation you are the victims of an illusion wrapped in superficiality. We must speed up the coming of the inevitable.

- Facing the Challenge of a New Age,

December 1956

As this is too long to leave as a comment on their blogs, I have put it here. It is also for my own reference when I wonder the same.