if you are familiar with those words....then you have watched West Side story.
A riveting story that can be spun into tales of division, misunderstanding, and strongest of them all, the power of love over hate. or maybe the other way round.
Let us take a good lesson from this production, "Love has power to conquer hate"
easy eh? no so much.
You see, throughout our lives, we as human beings have a bad habit of holding on to anger, or hate. it is not easier, its just much more satisfying to 'stick it" to the other person who has wronged you. Or think has wronged you. Proven is the fact that One uses more energy to be angry than to smile, and be happy.
There is so much hate in the world. So much anger. So much misunderstandings that have caused so many deaths and so much pain and suffering.
While I am not trying to reduce the world's pain in one single word, look at the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, the hutus/tustis, ages and ages of Middle Eastern Politics...and the struggle with the west.
All conflicts that are fueled by hatred and anger.
It was Eric Hoffer, a great American philosopher who was quoted saying, "Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for battle.
Bingo!
Off course it does not help that the media has become and engine for maintained anger. When was the last time you had good news being reported? When was the last time that there was no negativity in the news?
I have a hard time believing that in a world as big as ours, that nothing good is going on. its just that, PR calls for a strategy towards news that arouse emotions of either panic or anger.
Wouldn't be so much more effective to report on the reconciliation that is going on between groups that are in strife. of how people are coming together to overcome their hardships. Telling stories of love, of peace, stories that uplifts us.
Wouldn't a little bit of love go far?
Be it that I am not a supporter of Sufism, Inayat Khan, the founder has some words that we would do well to remember,"The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget."
Or even Gandhi-- "Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred."
So then what brings all, the all consuming hate. What is the root of hate?
if we were created by a Loving God, how then can we hate? I believe that hate comes from our succumbing to selfishness. Hate comes when we are not willing to let go, or even want to be selfish about our "rights". When we are selfish, we want to hoard in all that we can get, whether its material or immaterial. Can we become more human, go back to the place where love comes easily, and we can care more, love more, be in communion with each other.
If you have read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, you are familiar with the quote, "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility."
AKA....we are born to love,unless we become selfish. If we are open, we can love and love fully, unless we keep reliving our pasts over and over again.
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