June 11, 2025
I very much fear that we are on the verge of another
if not a global pandemic, at least a very pervasive epidemic. I see the signs
of the growth of a disease that has in fact been present throughout the ages.
One that, while harmful to the unfortunate individual who has contracted it, has
always failed to spread easily to others.
It has appeared locally, here and there throughout history, but has
remained for the most part a malady that, if it turned virulent, was easily isolated.
But now I am very much worried that this disease, as
the worst of them will inevitably do, is metastasizing. It is more contagious
now than ever, and it has begun to dig in, and to spread from its location of
origin through the rest of the body—even to parts not prone to it.
Friends, the body is our society and the disease is
hate.
Slowly, stealthily, over the last decade or so, hate
has taken hold of a greater number of our brothers and sisters. I think it’s
because of all the bullshit that has been thrown about in the media, in small
gatherings, in our political arenas, hell, into the very air itself.
Now, as we all know, not all bullshit is bad. While it
all does stink, some of it makes an excellent manure. Bullshit can work wonders
on rose bushes. You can spread some on your bare garden plot just as spring is
taking hold, and whatever you plant thereafter has a good chance of thriving.
Sadly, that’s also true if what you plant thereafter is
not something good and beneficial. It’s true if what you plant is hatred.
Sowing hatred is a lazy habit. It’s like sowing weeds.
Weeds choke out good plants and steal all the nutrients for themselves. It’s
what you can plant and walk away from, knowing you don’t really have to tend to
it if you sow enough of it. You’ll end up with a bumper crop with practically
no work at all. As I said, lazy.
I’m seeing so much hatred in the course of my everyday
life. There are some videos on YouTube. Maybe you’ve seen a few of them. They feature
some “great injustice” done to an innocent person, and then the “great take
that you cur!” that is ostensibly the moral of the piece. But what the piece
does—whether wittingly or unwittingly—is to fertilize the seeds of hatred
within you, the viewer. When you’ve finished watching the video, you’re
not left with a feeling of having been uplifted. What you’re left with is a desire
to see more.
Those videos aim to convince you that they have
obliterated the injustice. But they haven’t done that at all. And that is
because they use the same sort of injustice against the first hater, followed
by an implied, “how do you like them apples?” And so they fail. They fail
because the creators of those videos have forgotten one true fact about hate.
Hate cannot conquer hate. Only love can do that. Darkness cannot vanquish darkness; only light
can do that.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I bit at the worm on the
hook. It took my watching about three videos to understand why I felt the way I
did after viewing them. Because the answer to the damage done by hate is never
to throw hate back at the source. It can’t be.
One of the hardest things we learn as reasoning,
thoughtful and loving human beings is that haters will hate, and the only
weapon to fight it is love, and forgiveness.
Fact is, whatever you toss out into the cosmos comes
back to you, often multiplied.
I understand the allure of spewing hate on those who
have hated you. I really do. When we image “getting back”, at someone who has
wronged us, we get a bit of a warm fuzzy and a sense that it would feel really
good to do that. But that sense, that little voice that wants us to do just
that is a lie. Because all we can ever reap from sowing hate is more hate.
There may be some who are saying, “I’m not going to forgive
so-and-so. They don’t deserve it.”
Friends, no, perhaps they don’t. But you do.
You see, when you forgive someone for any real or
perceived wrong done to you, you’re not giving them a gift. Frankly they could
care less.
You’re giving yourself a gift.
You are giving yourself a gift by taking the weight of
that hate off your soul—and filling your heart with love.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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