| These
selected passages on poverty, power, and procrastination speak to us as clearly and as
urgently in 2002 as they did when they were first published in 1968. Taken together they
constitute a reflection on poverty made even more pointed when heard in the context of
today's shocking facts and figures on poverty in our nation. Poverty
"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and
blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other
because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant
animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total,
direct, and immediate abolition of poverty."
Power
"Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength
required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. In this sense power is not
only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of
the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually
contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power
with a denial of love. It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, the
philosopher of the "will to power" to reject the Christian concept of
love…. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and
abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love
implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything
that stands against love."
Procrastination
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the
fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is
such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often
leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the
affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for
time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the
bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic
words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records
our vigilance or our neglect.
'The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on….' We still have a choice
today: Nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind’s
last chance to choose between chaos and community." |
