About Hate

We talk about hate a lot in our world, but we use the word wrong. We use the word today to talk about any time someone disagrees with someone else - gosh, they must "hate" them. Yet, that's not what hate means. 

There is a very real kind of hate in the world. Actual hate. 

And we would do well to talk about it. 

It's important, when talking about hate, to talk about where hate comes from. Simply put, hate always comes from a lie. 

Always. 

Hate comes from a lie that we start to tell ourselves in response to a perceived injustice in the world or in our own lives. We come up with a narrative that encompasses the injustice in such a way that it's less complicated, less complex, and shields us from having to deal with whatever the hard truth is that is the actual cause of injustice. 

And there are injustices. There are absolutely injustices. There are slights. There are offenses. There are things that don't happen the way that we should or the way that we want them to, despite our best planning. We don't always get what we deserve...and others don't always get what they deserve. 

Every injustice comes down to the fundamental truth that the world we live in is broken. It is affected by sin. We are affected by sin; we are broken. We aren't always our best, and the world isn't always predictable, and life always ends in death; it just seems to spiral toward it, no matter what we do. 

These are hard truths. The things that we have to live with in this world are hard. It's hard when the diagnosis is terminal. It's hard when the breath is final. It's hard when the work doesn't pay off. It's hard when the prejudice puts us down. It's hard when the systems lean so dramatically one way or another. It's hard when we know someone else is lying to us. It's hard when we don't know the truth. 

So we make up a truth. We make up a truth that plants hate in our heart because hate is easier than brokenness. Hate is easier than not knowing. 

Oh, we know. It's their fault. 

Whoever they are. 

And see, this works great. We always have someone to blame so that 1) we never have to blame ourselves and 2) we never have to just accept that things are broken. We never have to grieve, we never have to worry, we never have to change because they are the problem and that basically lets us off the hook (or makes us really militant about changing them). 

So we hate. Because it keeps us from having to deal. 

But of course....