HATE
What one thing do your dislike more than any other? Could you call that your pet “hate?” Or, would you rather think you can' t truly hate anything or anybody?
Many of us, with our religious background - tend to equate hatred with evil. We often fail to realize that in order to oppose that which is wrong in our society we must, logically, feel sentiments of hatefulness toward all evil as such. We must constantly hate and despise all that are evil about us and attempt to do something about it including taking steps to be taken which will, in time, enlighten us and changes in our thinking which will change even that distrust and hatefulness to some form of Love and understanding.
Make certain your hatred is curbed by proper restraints and limitiatons, however. Far too often, we allow our displeasure with circumstances which annoy us to flow over into other aspects of our lives and this can lead only to ruin. You hate the circumstance but do not actually hate the perpertrator...not in the same sense, at least. You may distrust that person , you may think that person to be beyond redemption, but there is - in our religious concepts - always a chance he or she can be reclaimed and we owe them that chance - however slight it might, in our mind, seem to be.
Next Tuesday happens to be Election Day in our community, and I will go to the polls as is my right and duty as a citizen. I will vote according to my personal feelings, but I cannot , as so many seem to do, hate and despise people who happen to want to vote otherwise from my choices. There is, probably, no one place in which we see wrongful hatred is displayed
than in the area of political affairs and that factor, I think, is a main barrier preventing many people from participating in the democratic rites of their own government.
We must learn to condemn wrong when we see it, but to be compassionate with worthy wrongdoers.
It is, oddly enough, a reciprocal arrangement; a two-way street, because the person we deem to be taking wrongful actions is, in all likelihood, seeing us doing much the same thing. In our mutual ignorance, we often commit crimes of misjudgment against each other and these, most often, petty differences, can grow to be major complications to the ultimate ruin of both groups. In such situations there a no lasting victories.
We cannot rule hate out of our lives completely. It is a human quality which will manifest itself at times, just as Hunger, Thirst and the need for Sleep do, but we can learn to accommodate our lives to make use of its power, drive, and special capabilities to drive Evil from our midst.
A. L. M.. November 1, 2002 [c483wds]
