As Covid-19 continues unabated, certain parts of our society seem to be plunging further & further into anxiety & despair. Many are going hungry, while others are at risk of their businesses and livelihoods going under. To add insult to injury, we have also learned about senseless violence in Georgia with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery by two white gunmen who profiled him. How can we lament these losses — all of which are existential in nature — without descending into nihilism and becoming the thing we hate?

We’ll probe the answer by studying snippets of an essay Dr. King wrote in 1961 entitled, ‘Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience.’ In this piece, Dr. King emphasizes the imperative to deal with our sorrows in a way that is ultimately rooted in love and concern for our fellow man — including, most especially, for our enemies. After all, no matter how difficult things become, we must always remember that, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”