Lettera per la pace

Good morning, Mr. Zelensky.
I am an italian woman and I decided to write to you because one morning of any day I felt the urge to send you some words of hope and peace.
In this regard I was guided by the personality of Preacher Martin Luther King who, like other great figures in history, helped the individual and humanity as a whole to reflect and seek "truth" beyond social rules or personal fears.
Here you can find some sentences from the book “STRENGTH TO LOVE” by Martin Luther King that I would like to bring to your attention.

A) ON BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR
And who is my neighbour? Luca 10: 29
The Samaritan had the capacity for a universal altruism. He had a piercing insight into that which is beyond the external accidents of race, religion, and nationality. One of the great tragedies of man’s long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class, or nation.
What are the devastating consequences of this narrow, group-centered attitude? It means that one does not really mind what happens to the people outside his group. If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of the citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue?
If a white man is concerned only about his race, he will casually pass by the Negro who has been robbed of his personhood, stripped of his sense of dignity, and left dying on some wayside rode.
The real tragedy of such narrow provincialism is that we see people as entities or even things. Too rarely do we see people in their real HUMAN ESSENCE. A spiritual myopia limits our vision to external accidents: we see men as Jews or gentiles, Catholics or Protestants, Chinese or Americans, blacks or white, do not think of them as human beings similar to us, made of our own fundamental substance, modeled on the same divine image. The priest and the Levite saw only a bleeding body, not a human being like them. But the Good Samaritan will always warn us to remove the cataracts of provincialism from our spiritual eyes and see men as men.
If the Samaritan had regarded the wounded man first as a Jew, he would not have stopped, because the Jews and the Samaritans had no relations with each other: he saw him first as a human being, who was only by accident Jewish. The good neighbor looks beyond external accidents and sees those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

B) THE FOOLISH MAN
Foolish, this night your soul will be asked. LUKE 12: 20
The rich man was foolish because he did not realize his dependence on others. His soliloquy contains about sixty words, yet "I" and "mine" appear twelve times. He had said "I" and "mine" so often that he lost the ability to say "we and "ours". Victim of the cancer of selfishness, he did not realize that wealth is always a result of general well-being, he spoke as if he could plough fields and build granaries alone. He did not realize that he was the heir to a great treasure of ideas and work to which both the living and the dead had contribute
When an individual or a nation neglects this interdependence, we are faced with a tragic madness.
All this tells us something fundamental about the interdependence of men and nations. Whether we realize it or not, each of us is always "in debt": we are eternally indebted to known and unknown men and women. We do not finish breakfast without being conditioned by more than half of the world. When we get up in the morning, we go to the bathroom, where we grab a sponge that has been provided by an islander of the Pacific, we grab a soap created for us by a Frenchman; the towel is provided by a Turk; then at the table we find coffee, that is supplied to us by a South American, or tea, provided to us by a Chinese, or cocoa, by a West African. Before we go to work, we owe more than half the world.
In a real sense, all life is interdependent.
The rich man, tragically, did not realize it.
He thought he could live and prosper in his little self-centered world. He was a crazy individualist. Really, he was an eternal fool!
The means by which we live have left behind the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has surpassed our spiritual power. We guided the missiles well and led the men badly.
Our capacity for creative life lies in our ability to restore the spiritual ends of our lives to personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral awakening, we will destroy ourselves with the misuse of our own tools. Our generation can not escape the question of our Lord: "What will benefit a man, if he buys the whole world of external things - airplanes, electric light, cars and color television - and loses the inner one, his soul?".

C) THE DEATH OF EVIL AT SEA
And Israel saw the dead Egyptians on the shore of the sea. EXODUS, 14, 30
If God does not want to deal with evil with overwhelming immediacy, it does not mean that He does nothing. We, weak and finite human beings, are not alone in our quest for the triumph of justice: there is, as Matthew Arnold wrote, a "lasting power, that is not us, and that favors justice".
When we are in the darkness of some oppressive Egypt, God is a light on our way. He gives us strength to endure the trials of Egypt, and gives us courage and ability to carry on our journey, when the lamp of hope is extinguished and the candle of faith is consumed, he restores our soul, giving us renewed strength to move forward. He is with us, not only in the hour of fulfilment, but also in the midnight of despair.
This would be an unbearable world, if God had only one light, but we must feel comforted, because God has two lights: one light to guide us into the brightness of the day, when hopes are realized and circumstances are favorable, and a light to guide us in the darkness of midnight, when we are opposed and the sleeping giants of darkness and despair arise in our soul.

D) PILGRIMAGE TO NON-VIOLENCE
In our age of spaceships and remote-controlled ballistic missiles, the choice is between non-violence and non-existence.
I am not a doctrinaire pacifist, but I have tried to embrace a realistic pacifism, which considers the pacifist position as the lesser evil in present circumstances.
I was struck by the storms of persecution. I must admit that sometimes I thought I could no longer bear such a heavy burden, and was tempted to retreat to a more peaceful and peaceful life. But every time I was tempted, something came to strengthen and support my decision. By now I have learned that the weight of the Master is light precisely when we take on his yoke.
In recent years, God has been deeply real to me.
In the midst of external dangers, I felt an inner calm; in the midst of desolate days and nights of terror, I heard an inner voice saying: Behold, I will be with you. When the chains of fear and the strains of frustration had almost reduced my efforts to impotence, I felt the power of God that transformed the labor of despair into the joy of hope. I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving intention and that man has cosmic allies for the struggle for justice. Behind the harsh appearances of the world, there is a benign power. The last decade has been exciting. Despite the tensions and uncertainties of this period, something profoundly significant is making its way. The old systems of exploitation and oppression are disappearing; new systems of justice, and equality are being born. Really, this is a great time to live. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Agree that the easy optimism of yesterday is impossible; agree that we are facing a world crisis that so often leaves us standing in the middle of the growing murmur of the agitated sea of life. But every crisis has at the same time its risks and its possibilities: it can mean salvation or condemnation. In a dark and confused world, the Kingdom of God can still reign in the men’s heart.

With deep gratitude for the time you will devote to this reading, I greet you and trust in your best choices.

All the best.