Hate might win the battle but it will never win the war
Now, peaceful warriors who are constantly fighting for the power of love know that the battle is never ending as long as those who love power exist.
By David Ficarri
-Diversions with Dave-
Jimi Hendrix famously said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi died 50 years ago, but truth be told, those words still ring true in 2020. In fact, he could have uttered those words in 1720, 520 or in any century before Christ walked the Earth and they’d still be relevant.
It is that constant tension that has filled our history books.
There is one fundamental difference between the “power of love” and “the love of power.”
Like all good things this world has to offer, the power of love can sustain itself generation after generation and century after century.
As humans, we crave that power, we embrace it and we live for it. It feeds our soul like the river of life. As we journey through this life, our path to that peace is lit by the lights of love.
The only real thing that tries to extinguish those lights is those who crave their love of power.
Those who love power are fueled by all the negative forces of the world. Their greed, anger and hate are all in turn fueled by one thing, fear. We’ve seen it time and time again, they’ll ignore you, then try to silence you, then resort to violence to try and conquer you.
They jailed Galileo and Mandela. They assassinated Bhutto and Socrates, JFK and MLK.
Gandhi and Jesus Christ, maybe the world’s two most peaceful people, both met their demise because they had the courage to speak for those who had no voice. Sometimes that hate might win the battle, but it will never win the war. It can’t ever sustain itself.
The problem is that fuel eventually runs out and their power gets extinguished either through peaceful methods or the same violent means.
Now, peaceful warriors who are constantly fighting for the power of love know that the battle is never ending as long as those who love power exist.
We must always carry our swords and shields because the battle is always being fought. Hopefully one day, Hendrix’s words will be fulfilled and the world will truly know peace. Until then, the battle will rage on but make no mistake on how this story ends. Evil might win some battles but it can never win the ultimate war.
As Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently said, “Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name.”