Spreading Peace from Hatred?

How can you spread peace if you have hatred in your heart?

“Someone shot Donald Trump!”

“No, he wasn’t. It was staged.”

“It’s too bad the shooter missed.”

“I’m so upset this morning.” THIS is the only comment that everyone can agree on. They can’t agree WHY they are upset, but they are upset. Some that Donald Trump is alive, some that he almost wasn’t.

The only thing we seem to agree on these days is hatred for each other. Where is the love? What happened to being human?

Have we come so far that we stopped seeing other people as humans unless they are exactly like us? If someone doesn’t think or believe as we do, are they less than human? Should they be shackled and chained and beaten into submission?

Our society becomes outraged at the mistreatment of everything except humans who are different from themselves. It seems to be OK to treat others as less than human if they believe something we don’t. If they are political opposites, they are the enemy.

Is it too late to prevent ourselves from social suicide? Are we killing ourselves off slowly without recognizing the noose around our own necks?

This isn’t about Trump or Biden. They are the figureheads, but it isn’t about them at all. We have taken it to our neighborhoods. Now it’s about George Smith next door who is a Republican. Or Tom Green who is a Democrat.

It has become acceptable to stifle their words to attempt to force them to change their beliefs. Personal liberties are being trampled left and right.

It isn’t just one thing. It’s a lot of little things that are adding up to the big things.

The economy has too many people without money for necessities. Poor people are cranky and desperate. Desperate, cranky people are more likely to commit crimes. Everything just escalates.

And now we are in an election year. Politics magnifies every little issue into a huge mountain.  There is always hatred during election years.

As a society we are being manipulated. We are being encouraged to hate. Peace doesn’t sell. Our media needs people worked up and in a frenzy.

And we are allowing it to happen to us. We are letting the outside world manipulate us into hating our neighbor. We are being used.

Each of us is in control of our own actions. We can choose to hate our neighbor. Or we can find ways we are similar and work to grow those and perhaps add more.

Nobody has ever persuaded me with violence and force. I doubt it has ever changed anyone’s mind. However, acts of kindness and generosity have.

If we want to change the society of hate that we live in today, we need to start with ourselves. We can’t carry hate in our heart and preach peace. We have to have the peace in our own hearts to be able to share it with others.