But I’ll Still Try to Love You
“[At my first sit-in] we sat there for two days waiting for something to eat. And it was the most challenging two days of my life. People came up and spat at us in the face. They put lit cigarettes down our backs, our shirts. People would punch us in the stomach so hard that we would fall on the floor, and then they would kick us.
And each time something like this would happen, we would try to respond in a nonviolent, loving way. The American Nazi Party did come with their swastikas and using all kinds of violence against us.
Toward the end of the second day, I heard a guy come up from behind me and he said, ‘If you don’t get out of the store in two seconds, I’m gonna stab this through your heart.’
I looked at him in the eyes and his eyes were filled with hatred. And in his hand was a switchblade. I had two seconds to decide, do I really believe in nonviolence or is there some other way to deal with this guy?
We’d had a lot of practice and done role playing about situations like this. I just looked at him in the face and said, ‘Friend, do what you believe is right, but I’ll still try to love you.‘ It was absolutely amazing. His face that was contorted with hatred, his jaw began to drop and his hand with the switchblade began to fall and he left the store. And something in the way I responded to him had touched his humanity.”
— David Hartsough, 2024
Quaker civil rights activist
Reader Responses
What heals you?
What relationship do you try to cultivate with your own light and darkness?
I have realized that the positive dark in me is also a teacher — quiet, wise, and supportive when needed. And the light within keeps shining on the negative aspects the dark displays in order for me to realize what I must work on personally.
David T., Elgin, TX, USA
My regular prayers for those who have cast themselves in the role of my enemies have healed me of my rancor and contempt for them, and given me compassion for them instead. My prayers for them are that they will be healed from the damage they have suffered that causes them to pass that unhealed damage on to others. I pray that they will deeply experience God’s unconditional love for them and thereby be transformed by that knowledge of being truly loved.
I have decided to believe that is possible, and have experienced my own healing, a softened heart. A broken heart, to be sure, by all the pain and suffering these "enemies" are causing. I prefer a broken heart to a hard heart. And I believe they can be healed. Love heals.
Mickey E., Gwynedd, PA, USA
Music heals me. Music and time.
Chris E., San Francisco, CA, USA
The light comes from the love I feel for my family, blessed now with a new generation of grandchildren. The love is further nourished and confirmed by the green glory of Florida viewed out our living room window, as unstoppable renewing life created by the divine power dwarfing human treachery.
Margaret B., Boca Raton, FL, USA
This Week’s Messages
Your Refuge
God Is the initiator
We Can’t Will Ourselves to Be Fearless
Holding Hope for Restoration
Heal Our Broken Souls
God Will Set Thee Above Thy Fears
Banner image: Richard Brown Lethem
Read the source of today’s quote
