Teach your children well

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

                                                                        Nelson Mandela

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How do we teach people to hate?

Seriously

How do we do it

I watch the little kids in the play ground

All colors, all shapes all sizes

Playing

Together

Picking each other up  Getting from here to there

Together

How we do manage to go from that

To shields

And slogans

And baseball bats

And cars

And guns

How do we go from that to turning children away at our border

Because,

Just because they might be an inconvenience to us

Or because of the slight possibility they may someday do harm?

Would they do harm if welcomed with acceptance, and lover,

Rather than distrust and hate?

Somewhere along the way

Something is added

Something is taken away

And we are left with hate filled faces

And angry eyes

And mouths that curse

And people dying on the street

So we must teach love

And it must come from the President

And the Congress

And the police

And all those in power an authority

But it doesn’t

And it must come from the pulpit and pew

But it often doesn’t

And it must come from teachers

And parents, and grandparents

Even brothers and sister

If it won’t come from the top

It must come from the bottom

Perhaps that is the only place from whence it can come

And perhaps

It is not adults teaching children well

It is children teaching adults

What the divine image looks like

Before it is blurred, eroded, destroyed

It looks like love