Atoms of love

And I repeat with the same old passion, although I am gradually beginning to think that I am being tiresome, “It is the only thing we can do, Klaas, I see no alternative, each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable.”

 

And you, Klaas, dogged old class fighter that you have always been, dismayed and astonished at the same time, say, “But that—that is nothing but Christianity!”

 

journal entry from Etty Hillesum (1914–1943),

young Jewish woman who was killed at Auschwitz

______________________________________________________________

 

I am, I am so sure, right

They are, I am so sure, wrong

 

They are people who hate other people

Imagine that

And I hate people like that!

 

They are people who are cruel and brutal

And I must attack them, vindictively

 

They must be countered

Stopped

Destroyed

 

Or so I tell myself

 

But in the quiet of Facebook Exile

Where I landed for daring to tell the truth

(or so I think)

 

It occurs to me that there is enough

Free floating “atoms of hate” in the world

And it does not help, if like an unmasked person with COVID

I spray out even more

 

This is not a time to be a skunk, and spray hostility into the air

Nor is it a time to be a turtle, and withdrawn

 

It is instead a time to journey inside, and do battle

with myself

 

to go to that deep place that defines who I really am

and allow the living water of Love

wash away all that blurs the sacred image in me

 

the reality is that if I do not allow

Sacred to repair my inner house

If I do not let Jesus wash my feet (and Oh how I hate to need help)

 

Then, when I journey outward

and seek to live in this world

I will carry all my ills with me

 

and my ills will dance with the ills of others

and what a lively dance it will be

atoms of hate

and fear

 

harsh words

harsh actions

all of us, together becoming what we hate

becoming what we fear

making the world more inhospitable

a wasteland

 

Jesus showed us the way

Humility

Allowing Sacred to wash us

So that we, refreshed, the old self gone

 

We can add to this world

love