So here’s the thing about hate – in the current climate of our country sometimes I want to hate. I want to hate a President I don’t agree with, hate the things he does, hate the things he says. I want to hate the people who feel emboldened in their own hateful and divisive speech and behavior. I want to hate them because they hate me for being gay. You hate me and I’ll hate you right back…so there! I know you are admiring my maturity right now…all that’s missing is me sticking my tongue out.
When I was much younger and living in Denver I had a period of time with no car. I learned the joys of riding the bus during that year. One day I was at a bus stop and I noticed a young man standing beside me. When I looked down I saw that on his jeans he had written, “Kill a fag” and I became very frightened. Frightened that he would know I was gay and that he’d hurt me or kill me. It was a long and scary bus ride. That story reminds me that it’s so easy to hate. It takes no effort at all…I don’t understand you so I hate you…done. I don’t agree with you so I hate you…done. I think you’re stupid, (because you don’t agree with me, of course), so I hate you…done. I wash my hands of you and relegate you to a place where I dismiss you because I hate you. I may even feel proud of hating you, as if it’s the noble thing to do. I don’t need to try with you at all…I don’t try to understand your perspective, your feelings, your history…I just hate you. I hate you and walk away. I hold tight to all the anger that fuels the hate I feel for you.
Then I realized I don’t really hate any of those people…I’m afraid of them…afraid of their power, their actions, their bigotry. It’s so much easier to hate and be angry than to deal with you and my own fear. It may feel easier but it leaves me trapped in a quagmire of fear…immobilized by my own emotions. Buddha is credited with saying, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Buddha did not say that but it’s a good quote anyway. The emotions I bury, ignore, or deny become the emotions that keep me from fully being myself. It turns out that hating you hurts me…crap! Why is nothing simple, the way I want it to be?
I deny, bury, and ignore, the things I am afraid of in myself. If I stay in a place of fear I can ignore and deny you as well…for my own safety…but even that keeps me stuck. The funny thing is, and it isn’t funny it’s annoying, I can’t hate you and love me…I need to sit with that one for a while….
Buddha did say, “”In this world, hate never dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.” Hmmm….
Kai Raines 