It's common these days for spiritual leaders of all stripes to speak eloquently and volubly of love's power to heal the world. We're especially keen to talk about the power of love after we've been asked to deal with yet another horrific attack on innocent people, such as the recent gun attack at Stoneman Douglas high school or the van attack in Toronto. When our fellow human beings choose to behave like monsters, we're quick to respond by offering our thoughts and prayers on social media, hold candlelight vigils, and make donations on crowd-sourcing sites. This is all well and good. What I don't see is a willingness on the part of influential commentators to ask why the perpetrators in question felt such hatred towards others and why they thought it was okay to act on their hatred. I don't see people asking what hatred is and why we're seeing a resurgence of this beastly human emotion throughout the world.
It's not good enough to sweep these questions under the carpet by proclaiming that hatred is simply a void in a person's head where love should be, as if it's not the hate-filled person's fault.
Hatred is not a lack of anything. Hatred is a choice. And unless you can demonstrate that your biological brain has been catastrophically damaged by a head injury or a viral attack or mercury poisoning or something else along the lines of an extreme physiological force, you yourself are responsible for your choice to hate others.
Here is my working definition of hatred: Hatred is the choice to project your own personal responsibility onto somebody else so you don't have to deal with the consequences of your own thoughts, feelings, or actions.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of happiness.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own selfishness.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own status addiction.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of self-knowing and self-love.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you've made a mistake.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not special and you're not chosen and you're not "better" than anyone else.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not perfect and you're never going to be perfect.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people because you don't think you should ever have to deal with your own feelings of shame or guilt.
Hatred is the choice to blame other people when you realize you haven't yet achieved your rightful place as a saviour, Messiah, or enlightened teacher of justice and mercy, a place you're so certain you deserve.
Hatred is an inevitable consequence of believing that happiness is more important in your life than meaning; that morality is and should be fluid because our genetics demand we survive at all costs; that status acquisition is a true measure of why you're worthy of worship; that self-knowing is dependent on measures of happiness instead of measures of meaning.
Hatred is an inevitable consequence of your own belief that you already know yourself so well that you couldn't possibly fool yourself into believing things about yourself that simply aren't true.
Among the self-delusions that create no end of human suffering are these: a belief that you're incapable of making mistakes because you have all the right education and all the right knowledge; a belief that you're better than other people because you have the only correct ideological understanding of the universe; a belief in the superiority of your own mental processes because your logic is obviously impeccable; a belief that you deserve to feel moral outrage if anyone suggests you should feel shame or guilt about the choices you've made; a belief that you're using all your exquisite knowledge and specialness and logic to save other people from their own stupidity (though you usually have the sense not to say this part out loud).
In short, hatred is your brain's way of trying to prove to itself that you're a really nice person who's trying to save others when, in fact, you're a mean, nasty person who's narcissistic and selfish and refuses to take personal responsibility for your own choices and beliefs and attitudes towards others.
Hatred is a terrible force, and it creates indescribable suffering in the world, but it exists only because individual human beings and certain communities allow it to exist.
It exists where individuals and ideological communities (including many religious and spiritual traditions, not least several branches of Christianity and most branches of Buddhism) refuse to be honest with themselves about what human beings are capable of when they embrace a loving and humble relationship with both God and with themselves as souls-in-human-form. Of course, the choice to love with humbleness and courage is also a choice. Love and hate are at opposite ends of the free will spectrum. Choose one or the other because you can't have both
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| What love looks like: lots of open space. The well in the cloister garden of Westminster Abbey, London, England. Photo credit JAT 2023. |
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| What hatred looks like: lots of rigid words. It's your job to listen to what your preachers tell you and decide for yourself whether the words you're hearing come from a place of love or a place of hatred. Don't be fooled by hatred masquerading as a promise of salvation. Photo credit JAT 2016. |
A particular passage in the New Testament summarizes these thoughts beautifully. The passage I'm thinking of is found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, so it's long been attributed to the apostle Paul. I'm pretty certain, however, that this short and timeless ode to Divine Love was written by Jesus and later stolen by Paul as part of the latter's ongoing efforts to make his teachings seem more closely aligned with those of Jesus.
It goes like this (using the NRSV translation, mostly):
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have piety, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Amen.
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