"Time to come together. We have big, big issues facing us right now. Love and hate are both four letter words. Only one is bad"
Back when I was a youth, a common thing in a dispute for one kid to tell another was, "I hate your guts!". Then when I got older, I would sometimes hear these words spoken in anger, "I hate you with a passion!". Some of the heated rhetoric from my youth involving the word hate was ignorance of the term. Why? Many of us had the words "hate" and "dislike" confused. However as we age, we realize just what a toxic word hate is. That is, most of us do.
Yesterday, when I was cutting the grass with my headphones on, I was listening to a sports show. One of the moderators said he hating something about some sport. Then he caught himself. He said, "In light what is going on today in Virginia, we can't use the word hate. It is a bad term. We will use the word loathe instead." I almost fell off the tractor. To me, hate and loathe are words which are like separated at birth twins. There is no difference what-so-ever.
So what is hate, and how did it erupt so violently at this rally yesterday in Virginia? What can cause someone to hate stranger, fellow countrymen, so much that he could run over them with his car? Or in Chicago where the murder count is through the roof. And most gunshot wounds are to the head. What kind of hate could cause someone to end another's life by shooting that person in the head?
Those in the faith know where hate comes from. Love comes solely from God. It is a God given gift to his creation. Hate does not come from God. Hate comes from the one most evil. It is not only evil, it is also harmful. Harmful? Yes. It has often been said that hate is a boomerang emotion. It affects the hater more than the hated. If you hate someone with all your heart (without doing that person harm), hate only affects the hater. It truly is the battery acid of the soul.
One of our former pastors would often say that it is okay if you dislike someone. Sometimes a person might just rub us the wrong way. We are after all, human. But, we can disagree with someone without becoming disagreeable. We can still be nice to someone without being friends. But hate - that is a different issue. It is never okay to hate.
I grieve for all yesterday who were involved in the Virginia issue. There were way too many hateful things said and done to others. It is time to heal. Time to come together. We have big, big issues facing us right now. Love and hate are both four letter words. Only one is a bad one.
I wish our President had the same reaction as you did to the hate-mongering filth.
ReplyDeleteThis weekend is not the first time that Trump has appeared reluctant to denounce white nationalists or other racist groups and individuals, many of whom supported his presidential campaign last year.
He retweeted accounts and memes with ties to white supremacist groups, and he waited until deep into the campaign before firmly disavowing the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
That suggests that Trump’s cautious statements, like those of past presidents, may stem in part from his reluctance to alienate a key group of supporters; in Trump’s case, however, those key supporters include avowed racists.