Re: Retaliate with love

You all are going to HATE this - 
but I need to speak. 

I'm having trouble with the word retaliate - look it up in your computer 
thesaurus and you'll find "hit back, strike back, even the score,get revenge, 
etc. The word itself is reactive (love is proactive), it keeps track - "even 
the score" (love does not keep track or keep score), and it comes from a frame 
of we/they/war.

I'd like to suggest saying "react with love" or something less war-like.

I'm really not trying to be the language police, but language is SO important. 
The more intentional we can be with it, the better our peace-making efforts!

Nan



Nan Ottenritter
Coordinator, Bridges to Healthy Communities, Health and Wellness
American Association of Community Colleges
One Dupont Circle, Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036
PH: 202-728-0200, ext. 230
FAX: 202-833-2467
nottenritter@aacc.nche.edu
Check out AACC's webpage at www.aacc.nche.edu.
"The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on 
the earth." Chinese proverb

>>> "Clothier, Raymond" <clothrs@millsaps.edu> 09/12/01 11:29AM >>>
Hearing from Stan on the efforts of those at LaGrange College to "retaliate
with love" brought these words to mind:

. . . Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a
night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only light
can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate
multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies
toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. . . The chain reaction of
evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or
we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Strength to Love, 1963, p. 51

Peace to y'all,
 
Raymond Clothier
Associate Director of the Faith and Work Initiative
Millsaps College
1701 N. State Street
Jackson, Mississippi 39210
Phone: 601 974 1470
Fax: 601 974 1470
clothrs@millsaps.edu <mailto:clothrs@millsaps.edu> 
http://www.millsaps.edu/faithwrk <http://www.millsaps.edu/faithwrk>