Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:39

As I stood inside the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta waiting to interview Coretta Scott King, I gazed at an exhibit of the travel bag Dr. King had used on his fatal trip to Memphis. Inside the bag were two books. The one on top was entitled Strength to Love. It reminded me of his audacious belief that loving one’s enemies, not violence, held the power to transform society. Was he right? I wondered. Could simply acting in love in the face of hostility really make a difference?

Later I asked Mrs. King. “Let me tell you a story,” she replied. “One January night in 1956 while Martin was away, I sat home with our baby. Suddenly there was a thunderous blast. A bomb had been tossed onto the front porch. The baby and I were unharmed, but an angry crowd of our friends, wanting revenge, had gathered around the house when Martin got home.

“It was the first test of his theory,” she continued. “Martin hushed the crowd and said, ‘I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We must meet violence with nonviolence. We must meet hate with love.’”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The anger melted and the crowd faded into the night,” she said with a smile. “You see, the power of love is a mighty force.”

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As I left I stopped by the exhibit one more time. I wanted to see the title of the other book in Dr. King’s bag. It was Where Do We Go From Here? I thought about the hostility in our world, the conflicts between neighbors, even the angry situations in our own houses. The question on the book followed me all the way home.

Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you…—Romans 15:7 (RSV)

It was a cloudy, quiet July Fourth for us, that year of 1988. My husband worked. There were no parades. We’d decided not to spend the extra money on fireworks. You can barely see them, anyway, in Alaska’s summer twilight. We didn’t even have a picnic. Yet it’s the Fourth of July that I remember and treasure the most.

The two-story log home where we were living was not our own. We were house-sitting for the summer for our friends Lou and Elsa, who were visiting their native Czechoslovakia for the first time in twenty years. As a young married couple, they had fled the streets of Prague in terror when Soviet tanks swept through the city in 1968. For days before, Elsa had hidden beneath the bed in their cramped apartment with her two little girls. When they left, they could say good-bye to no one. They simply disappeared.

Lou and Elsa found a welcome in the United Sates, eventually making their way to Alaska. They learned English and worked hard. Lou, a master craftsman, fitted each log in their home with mortar and hope. Elsa tended a fruitful vegetable garden and produced wonderful aromas from kettles simmering in her tidy kitchen.

I was alone in Lou and Elsa’s living room in the afternoon on that Fourth of July, when I suddenly burst into tears. This is it, I thought. This is the real Fourth of July. They came to America to find “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and here I am, standing in the middle of their dream. I had a glimpse of how precious this beautiful, bountiful country of ours really is. And so I waved the only flag I had … my tears, genuine and proud.

She’s Yours, Lord, but You’ve allowed us to call her ours. Thank You from sea to shining sea.