LET'S TALK

Try love; hate's just too tiring

One of the main things I hate ... is hate.

Perhaps it would be more apropos to say, I'm tired of hate.

Let me lay that vowel down like the elders in my family would do so: I'm tah-ed of hate. OK? I've had my turn with harboring hate -- usually paired with unforgiveness -- and it did me no good.

I've heard many an older person say, "hey, I'm too tired/tah-ed to deal with [whatever]." Usually, "whatever" is something that seemed to make all the difference in the world when they were younger ... something to get all fired up about, something on which to expend precious energy and brain power. As I've aged, my priorities have shifted and I'm all about jettisoning anything likely to sap my spiritual, mental, physical, relational and emotional health. Hate is one of those things.

Hate is a word we've heard a lot lately, thanks to the Aug. 12 protest, by groups identified as hate groups, over the removal of a Gen. Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville, Va. The protest drew counterprotesters and spawned not just violence, but the death of one woman after a car slammed into a crowd.

Afterward, piggybacking off of the hours of TV coverage, came the social media storm ... those who decried the hate groups and the driver who killed the counterprotester; the calling out of individual hate-group members; the frustration with the president's reaction; the anti-hate rally the next day at our state Capitol and the call, at that event, to love.

Had I had attended the latter gathering, I might have carried a sign stating, "Choose to love. Hate is just too much doggone trouble."

I still remember those often-fascinating public service announcements of years ago. In one, a cartoon showed an angry, hate-filled man walking. As he continued to walk, his hatred, a three-pronged pinwheel, churned in his stomach. His head grew bigger and bigger, redder and redder, until the guy exploded. The soundtrack is a man singing to guitar music: "When you hate, who do you hurt the most? Hate hurts you." (God bless YouTube. You can find anything on there.)

That public service announcement needs to be dusted off and shown again.

It needs to be shown over and over to any one of who would hate another because that person's skin color is different. Because that person is seen as having more favor and getting more breaks. Because that person got "our" job. Because that person got rich off our backs or appears to have done so. Because that person is uglier or prettier or smarter or so-called dumber. Because that person bullied us for being fat, smart, dumb or something other. Because that person is a sibling who was treated better by our parents than we were. Because that person oppressed and abused us hours/days/weeks/months/years/decades ago. Because that person is living a lifestyle we're not used to or don't approve of. Because that person is wearing the wrong colors. Because our lives are jacked up, and that person is around, and well, who better to blame?

Whether our reasons to hate are justified, silly or irrational, there are better things to concentrate on. Yeah, love is one of them. Yeah, that sounds hokey. Love is the answer, love is all you need, et cetera and ad nauseam.

But love is healthy, according to those in the know. If we show what a WebMD.com story refers to as the "calmer, more stable form of love," as opposed to that passion/romance stuff -- in other words, agape love, rather than eros -- we won't have to see the doctor as often; we're less likely to be depressed and abuse substances; our blood pressure benefits; and we're even less likely to be stressed or have headaches or back pain. This goes for stable marriages as well as stable friendships and family relationships.

Those benefits are sure to extend to our choosing to love in all our human encounters, no matter what. Sure, our kindness (love) can be taken for weakness. Sure, we can have love thrown back in our faces by those who would return evil for good.

But just like Mama's admonition that we can catch more flies with honey than we can with vinegar, the love we give out will find its way back to us in some shape or form. If we all get tah-ed of hate, we'll even be healthier because of it. For sure, our heads won't explode. And we won't end up on national TV for the worst, most tragic reasons.

Email:

hwilliams@arkansasonline.com

Style on 08/20/2017

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