I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I’ve got every reason to hate.
I’ve got every reason to choose hate when I turn on the news and all I see is a vitriol of mockery strewn across the faces of young people as they stand before the elders of their land.
I’ve got every reason to choose hate when every encouraging comment about my book means a retaliation of five more discouraging comments, when perfect strangers seem to believe that they have every right to heap their fear upon my shoulders.
And I’ve got every reason to choose hate when walls are being built and entire people groups are made exempt from serving our country and our commonalities seems to grow more divided by the day.
I’ve got every right to hate, I say. And if I’m not the only one, then we’ve got every right to hate as well.
But instead of hate, we choose subversive joy and indefatigable faith.
Instead of hate, we choose hope and light and love. Instead of hate, we keep believing that light will break into darkness, that wholeness and redemption and mercy will cover this land, that we will camp out in the land of what we hold in common instead of in everything that tears us apart.
Because, maybe, that’s the only thing we can do.
Eight hours ago, I found myself sharing the screen with a woman who’s become a dear friend to me. She was my co-leader in a live Facebook discussion over a chapter from my book, The Color of Life, for the launch team.
I wish I would have taken notes during our conversation, mostly because of all the wisdom that tumbled out of her mouth, one glorious boulder after another. Really, it was kind of like our very own book club, because we talked a little bit about the book and a whole lot about our experiences around themes in the book – which is usually the best kind of book club, after all.
So, today we talked a whole lot about not noticing – for that was the theme of the chapter, after all – and at one point, Quanny talked about how when she’s in conversation with people she doesn’t always see eye to eye with, she makes a conscious effort not only to think about things before they come out of her mouth, but to also get to the root of what that person is trying to say.
Because if we can get to the heart of the matter, then we can get to the heart of the human being. And if we can get to the heart of the human being, then we can remember that our humanity is linked with theirs and back and forth and back again.
I suppose that’s when the really wise and sage people of this world then choose not to hate, but to continue to choose a subversive, bucking kind of joy and an indefatigable, tireless type of faith that doesn’t stop believing that darkness will have the last word.
And I don’t know about you, but I think that’s what I’m going to try and choose today and tomorrow and every day after too.
What about you?
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