During the last year, I have been working on a book entitled Mystic Activists in which I explore and discuss how our spiritual practices such as prayer, contemplation, worship, and the like are absolutely essential to our work for social justice, specifically racial justice, in the United States. For me the process of writing this book has been a record of my own experiences with the integration of spirituality and activism, but also a deep learning experience of how activists who I have long admired like Dr. Martin Luther King and John Lewis, known best for the courageous acts defying the forces of racism, were also people of regular and deep prayer.

I write these words on January 20, the day we both remember Dr. King’s life and witness and observe Donald Trump’s inauguration to his second term as U.S. President. For many people, including me, this day is a day of tragic contrast between King’s vision of the Beloved Community characterized by love and justice for all people, and the meanness of a second Trump presidency where he has promised to deport thousands of undocumented citizens and to use his office to seek revenge against political opponents.

I have no illusions about Trump’s intentions as president. At the same time working on this book has reminded me that we have at our disposal a source of power often overlooked. A phrase that King often used in his speeches and sermons is the call to meet “physical force with soul force.” In fact, in King’s most well-known speech – the “I Have a Dream” speech – King says these words:

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

You see King knew that the struggle for freedom and justice was at its root a spiritual battle. While he spoke about poverty, racism, and unjust practices embedded in the institutions of our nation, it was a battle that started in the souls of people. King learned from Gandhi that people rooted in the values of truth, love, human dignity, respect for all people, and an abiding trust in God, however, one conceives of the Divine, connects us to a source of power that causes despots to tremble. This soul force, as he called it, provides us with the strength, stamina, wisdom, perseverance, and energy to stay in the fight for justice despite the odds.

For King, the most tangible expression of soul force was his commitment to nonviolence and love, not only for those oppressed but also for the oppressor. The ability of King and his followers to face overt violence, angry dogs, guns, and jail cells came from a place deep within called the soul. Soul force reminds us we do not fight alone but with the power of God’s Spirit before and within us. We may struggle and suffer but we are never defeated when relying on soul force.

I won’t deny that I still struggle with fear and deep sadness over the direction toward authoritarianism and meanness our country seems to have taken. However, at the same time, I am taking the time and energy to search deep within and tap into recharge my soul force and join with others to resist where necessary.