When you have to choose a way to interact with people, find love.
A Weekend of Hate
As I write this the weekend of the Charlottesville rally that injured many people and left one dead, I see what so many other people see: hate. Angry and narrow-minded people decided that hate was more important than moving our country forward. Instead of dropping prejudices and working toward a better world, they chose hate.
Hate is anger that has chosen a target. It’s an unhappiness that has assigned blamed. It’s a boiling cauldron of displeasure that points a finger. It’s the outgrowth of agony that has decided to lay that pain at the feet of another.
In the case of racism, it is assigning one’s problems to another. It is saying that the reason things aren’t as a person wants them is because of some group that’s different. It’s the unwillingness to accept that either some good is deserved by others or that life can be equally painful at times for everyone. It tries to hoard the good, and keep the bad at bay by redirecting the pain of life’s sadness to others.
Love Is Better
But life isn’t meant to be stacked in one’s favor, just as pain is not meant to be redirected. Instead, life is meant to be shared. It’s meant to be connected with others. It’s meant to be lived with those who can understand our pain and triumphs and sit with us or cheer with us as we experience it all.
Blaming a group because of the color of their skin or where they come from for our grief doesn’t remove our grief. It keeps us from dealing with it which only makes it grow. Believing that we deserve something because of the color of our skin or where we come from only leads to delusion and hides us from the truth.
Instead, love helps us to see those who are different as allies, as friends, and as people who can help us through life’s challenges and celebrate with us in life’s victories. Love helps us deal with the pain that might otherwise fuel anger and resentment. It helps us accept that we don’t have to have all the privileges and power to enjoy life, because love is more rewarding any other thing.
As we look at those who would say “I am better because of how I was born”, let us turn to a different approach and say “I am happy because I choose love”. Then let’s love the disenfranchised, the different, the unloved, or simply anyone. Let’s choose love.
