BRATTLEBORO — On this year's Martin Luther King Day, let us be mindful of King's words that “[d]arkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
In his honor, let us believe that the human adventure on planet Earth will not end in ashes, but in jubilation; that the imperative to love our neighbor will be practiced as naturally as breathing in and breathing out.
Let us believe that the smiles of infants will last to become the smiles of elders.
Let us believe that people of all colors, races, and creeds will live together in triumph, celebrating together their common humanity, rejoicing together in the bounty of the earth, exulting together in sunrise and sunset, in majesty of mountain and rapture of ocean.
Let us believe that the earth's peoples will feel a wonder for all life and understand it as all good, all connected, and all essential.
Let us believe that animosities and ignorance will one day dissolve like the morning mist, and that no one will have reason to hate, because we will know at last that we are one people of one planet.