Why Light a Candle?

Something as simple as lighting a candle—or writing a blog post—can be meaningful in a time of war and injustice.

If you don't know who A.J. Muste is, you should look him up. Born Abraham Johannes Muste in Zierikzee, the Netherlands, in 1885, Muste moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan In 1891 and became a naturalized citizen in 1896. After graduating from the Union Theological Seminary, he involved himself in the Communist and labor movements and later served as a leader of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith organization that uses nonviolent means to try to bring about peace and civil rights. He was a mentor to such FOR staff members as Bayard Rustin and James Farmer.

He also helped found the Congress of Racial Equality and inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. to use nonviolent protest to achieve his goals of freedom and equality. At the end of Muste’s life, King said that without Muste, “the American Negro might never have caught the meaning of true love for humanity."

Muste was a prominent critic of the Vietnam War. He stood outside the White House every night for years holding a single lit candle in protest of that conflict. According to a widely shared story, a reporter once asked him what the point of this was—did he really think he was going to change the administration's policies or the country's mind by making this small gesture. ("Virtue signaling" wasn't a term then, but skepticism about one's naivete certainly was.) In response, Muste said, "Oh I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won't change me.”

I don't have any illusions as to whether my posts have changed anyone. I suspect they've troubled some and enraged others, friends and strangers alike (hi, new mamber "Adolf Hitler.") But like Muste, I do this mostly to keep the world from changing me. From keeping me from wavering in my beliefs and from thinking a world glimpsed through a looking glass of oppression and evil somehow makes sense. That's why I keep reading people like Omer Bartov, Susan Albulhawa and Mosab Abu Toha. To know I'm not alone. And writing along with them gives me a way to let my words reflect myself back to me.

Though the world I'm not necessarily seeking to change is, in fact, changing. Most of it is as now as horrified as I am by what Israel has done In Gaza and is now doing in Lebanon as I have been for 2.5 years. "How does it feel to be vindicated?" more than on friend has asked me recently. To see those who judged me realizing they were wrong.

To be honest, it isn't as gratifying as you might think. It's never been about vindication. About saying "I told you so," There's no glee in seeing the world come to its senses so late, only sorrow. For me, it's always been about standing with the people of Palestine and refusing to let evil prevail even if I only save myself from that evil. My blog posts are my candles. They're what keep me from being overcome by the darkness.

In an effort to persuade Martin Luther King, Jr. to join the antiwar movement, Muste arranged a meeting between King and Thich Nhat Hanh, a prominent Vietnamese monk and peace activist who founded the Engaged Buddhism movement in response to the Vietnam War. His mission was to engage with the suffering caused by war and to create a new branch of Buddhism that could save his country from the injustice of it. King did meet with Nhat Hanh and was so impressed by him that he nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nhat Hanh once wrote that "Only deep listening, mindfulness and gentle communication can remove the wrong perceptions that are the foundation of violence." My communications aren't gentle. I regularly call people cunts who deny and rationalize the slaughter of children. And maybe that means I won't change any perceptions that are the foundation of violence. It's certainly made people turn away from me. But that's OK, as Muste once said. If my words won't change hearts and minds they will at least fill the silence created by those who have chosen to politely look away. For fear of hurting feelings or seeming not fair and balanced to "both sides.

Nhat Hanh also wrote, "There is no path to peace. The path is peace." This Is my path. This Is my peace. This is how I respond to the evil of genocide. May true peace come to the people of Palestine and Lebanon and may the violence that continues to be perpetrated by Israel end once and for all. As always, this post is dedicated to the children of Gaza and Lebanon.