A new way

I read this story today for one of my classes here. It was cited in the book Kingdom Ethics by Glen Stassen and David Gushee, and is unbelievably touching. In this section, the authors are discussing the need for transformation in society that can come through spirituality, and it comes from the chapter entitled "Sowing the Seeds of Peace."

"Robert Coles tells how an eight-year-old black girl's faith in God transformed a violent situation to one of peace:

I was all alone and those [segregationist] people were screaming, and suddenly I saw God smiling and I smiled.... A woman was standing there [near the school door], and she shouted at me 'Hey you little nigger, what you smiling at?' I looked right at her face and I said, 'At God.' Then she looked up at the sky, and then she looked at me, and she didn't call me any more names. (Hampton et al., Preventing Violence in America, 124-27)"