We all know the words our parents told us not to say. You know, those little four-letter words. The ones that shocked our parents when we dared to speak them out loud and usually resulted in a spanking or your mouth being washed out with soap.
Well, there are four-letter words way worse than the ones that could get you detention when you were in school.
I’m talking about …
HATE.
Betcha thought I was gonna say it’s the F word. Although there is a dirty F word, it’s not the one you might think. It’s FEAR.
Webster defines HATE as: “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury”.
I HATE snakes, with a passion. The truth is that I don’t really hate them. I am literally frozen in FEAR when confronted by one that’s not in a cage, and I’m not too fond of them when behind a glass wall at the zoo either. I’m afraid of what they can do if they are poisonous and when confronted with one, if I’m still capable of movement (I wasn’t joking about being too afraid to move), I’m not sticking around to look at the shape of their head or what color is touching what. I’m gone and praying my butt can outrun it.
Ever heard the saying “the only good snake is a dead snake?” That is FEAR talking and when it is directing the narrative, you tend to lump all like things in together. Instead of admitting you’re terrified of poisonous snakes, it becomes a hatred of all snakes.
Right now our country is letting FEAR do a lot of the talking. And that is when HATE rears its ugly head.
Our nation is broken. Our people are fighting among themselves over things large and small, and it all comes down to FEAR stirring emotions and turning us on each other.
People HATE coronavirus!
People HATE injustice!
People HATE the police!
People HATE politicians!
You know what though? It all comes back to FEAR.
People who are afraid of the economy, of being homeless or without basic necessities because they are unemployed, are turning on people who want to stay closed and wear masks. And vice versa.
People who are against racism are afraid to march for change because they’re afraid of the reactions of police officers or of others who are intentionally causing harm.
Police officers are afraid because they have all been lumped in with some rotten apples when all they wanted was to keep their cities safe and do a job they could be proud of.
People are constantly scrutinizing every word out of every politician’s mouth and condemning them for not acting swiftly enough to meet their needs. No one has an easy job right now, and they’re trying to meet the needs of as many as possible all at once.
We’ve become a nation of keyboard warriors without consideration of the view of both sides.
I have to wonder when did the Golden Rule become do unto others before they do unto you? Maybe the world would be better if we learned to recognize our FEAR without the need to HATE everything or everyone associated with something.
I know we just had a tense election; coronavirus is still changing our everyday lives; our country is in no way fair to all of its people. But I beg you to look inside yourselves. Consider what or who you are really upset about and think before acting. Your words can be a sword to divide and instill HATE or they can be of compassion and bring about comfort and understanding.
HATE and FEAR, if I hold onto them, only hurt me in the long run. I refuse to give the actions of a few that kind of control over my future or my heart.
