I found myself playing with words yesterday after reading about OBL’s death and its aftermath.\u00a0 What started as a wordplay, ended as a meditation on life and hate.<\/p>\n
First, the word play…<\/p>\n
I hate hate.
\nI hate hatred.
\nI hate the hate that hate begets.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I mess around with words, doodling, looking for combinations that sound nice or rhyme or are intriguing, like in the above example when one word can be both a verb and a noun.\u00a0 In spite of the ugliness of the word hate, I like the last line’s lilt (I like this sentence’s, too!)<\/p>\n
…then the meditation.<\/p>\n
Though I’ll probably never write an essay entitled “When Justice Deserves Death,”\u00a0 I\u00a0realize there are times when someone does something so bad, he or she deserves to die.\u00a0 This certainly seems to be one of those moments.<\/p>\n
Hate doesn’t win\u00a0just because hateful people do very bad things.\u00a0 Hate wins when we hate in return.\u00a0 Hate wins when we celebrate even a just death. Revenge debilitates whoever craves and nurtures it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hate loses to love.\u00a0\u00a0Defeat hate by\u00a0mourning\u00a0any need to kill, by mourning the natural but destructive urge to be glad for a death. Defeat hate by loving, by giving.<\/p>\n
I worry about an excessive hatred\u00a0that can become\u00a0such an obsession, the hater\u00a0forgets to love, to build, to hope.\u00a0\u00a0A true and effective\u00a0defense against evil and hate is to support and build what it tries to destroy: people and the institutions that enrich us.\u00a0 As people support and love other people, family, friends, and even strangers in need, hate is defeated.\u00a0 As people build up, giving money and time and backing supportive policies, the institutions that build and strengthen our common life: schools, the arts, research and innovation, commerce and trade, hate is defeated.\u00a0 More than any just death or other armed response, these are what will\u00a0help defeat what destroys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I found myself playing with words yesterday after reading about OBL’s death and its aftermath.\u00a0 What started as a wordplay, ended as a meditation on life and hate. First, the word play… I hate hate. I hate hatred. I hate … Continue reading