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A friend of mine warned me that Mun was spreading malicious stories about me in the dorm. She apparently really had it in for me, which I found surprising. I had no feelings one way or the other about her. She was, I think, a junior in college, and it was my first year. I assumed, and still assume, that she simply didn't like my personality. I was, I'm sure, a bit loud, a bit over the top, a bit too in love with everything and everyone.

I walked around for days, perhaps weeks, unsure what to do. How was I going to fight back? Retaliate? Then one day, I was walking down the hallway carrying a long stem rose that came from I don't know where any longer. Did I buy it with the intention of giving it to someone that I couldn't find? Did someone give it to me? I walked past Mun's room and she was sitting on her bed, holding court with all her friends spread out around her. Without a thought in my head, I found myself striding into her room. I can still see her face, looking up at me with a clear expression of anger, transformed to confusion as I held out the rose. I handed it to her, and she took it, as I said, "Life is too short." Her friends "awwwed" and I left. And from that day on, Mun was kind to me. I'm convinced it's not because she suddenly liked me, but because I was nice to her, in front of her friends, and she would have come across as a jerk if she had responded in any other way.

I read an article, perhaps in the Washington Post, perhaps at cnn.com, I read a quote of a person in Lebanon. They spoke of watching on television a young Israeli girl writing something on a missile before it was launched. They observed that she was most likely not writing any peaceful sentiments. They bemoaned the fact that such hatred and violence was manifest in one so young. They hoped that, when that missile landed in Lebanon, that someone would take a small piece of the blasted house after the missile landed and would write "Peace" or "Love" and send it back to the young girl.

We see all around the world examples of where violence as a response to violence leads. I think that individual in Lebanon had it exactly right. The only response to violence that has a prayer of ending violence is a gesture of love, of acceptance, of shared humanity.