Open Heart of a Child

Before sitting down to write A Hero Dreams, I revisited the writings of my heroes—all advocates for the radical idea of nonviolent resistance: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, and Henry David Thoreau. Each believed in the power of nonviolent resistance to right injustice and create lasting social change.

In support of the Civil Rights Movement he led until his assassination in 1968, Dr. King urged his followers to “meet the forces of hate with the power of love." According to King, violence was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or rather a continuing cycle with a simple, but not necessarily easy, solution:

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Could it be that simple? Was it possible to break the cycle of violence, not through brute force, but through love? Could we achieve peace by committing ourselves, as Dr. King did (and Gandhi before him), by responding to violence with love rather than hate?

Convinced Dr. King was correct, I sprinkled the seeds for this idea throughout the text and subtext of A Hero Dreams. Often, it’s the voice of Ricky’s deceased father that suggests peace is indeed possible. For example:

If we could see and know that only love is real, there would be no thoughts of separation. If there were no thoughts of separation, young boys would not tease each other and older boys would not learn to fight. If boys never learned to fight, men would not go to war defending abstract concepts such as right and honor. The world would only know peace.

To conclude that peace is possible because only love is real requires not the mind of a scholar, but the open heart of a child—a child like Ricky Williamson, a child like the one who lives in us all...

A Hero Dreams
Mark Ristau
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