I never saw this before. How infinitely easier to become an opposition, an effective [unviolent] warrior, when one can see a True, Righteous, Goodly, Noble... 'side' to join. 'Be the change the world needs to be.' They show a 'different way to be.' That's the Start. That's the beginning.
All hope springs from that. Be the person fighting unviolently, as a way of Life, as a way of Being, for our Global Neediest. Just being that, holding the position, being the position, being the 'way,' if the position is held long enough, despite overwhelming odds, THAT ALONE, makes it real, makes it something evident, something possible, something that can be joined - I can do that, I will do that.
At the end, when Luke is fighting the Emperor, I always saw that as Darth facing, seeing for the first time, really, the choice between his son, and Empire. I now see it in a much better light. Darth saw that there was a different side, a different way to be, a different direction to fight for, and he saw that it was preferable.
In the movie Iron Jawed Angels, we saw in the beginning, Alice Paul and her sergeant at arms, organizing outside a mill. A thin, eastern European immigrant woman, a poor mill worker, dismissed them, at least that was her intention, but when she saw that they didn't brush aside, she saw they were substantial, that they stood for something, they became material, they became a real alternative way of being, and she made that choice. Later in the movie, spoiler alert, a hideous matron guard, cruel, brutal, mean..., well, things changed.
'Be what the world needs to be.' This is the work. If you walk the 'Path,' you establish the Path, you make it real, visible, a choice, that others didn't have before, but they do now.
