June 13, 2016 | Look past the categories. Look inside. Find a way to love so mightily, it will crowd out the hate.
I believe there must be no room left for hate. In our hearts. In our families. In our communities. In our world. We must crowd it out with love. Unconditional love. It's the one and only way to extinguish its disastrous consequences. It will never be stopped with more hate.
With every newscast, I see another example of categorical hate. It is demoralizing. It is dehumanizing. We must stop applying labels and assigning categories in order to judge our fellow residents of earth.
I believe we are all brothers and sisters -- children of God. That belief, right there, would get me slotted with the naive, the zealots, and the fanatics, yet I'm none of those. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, but I shouldn't have to expect hate from those who don't.
I wonder, at times, why I was born into a family fostered in love and acceptance. If I had been born into a family who saw my femaleness as worthlessness, who fostered hate from the time of my birth, who trained me to believe that anyone who was different was an enemy to be extinguished, what kind of adult would I be now? What category would be mine?
My prayers, to a Heavenly Father who loves each of His children, include a plea for humanity to look beyond the outward appearance, the physical characteristics, and the varied beliefs by which the world categorizes us. We cannot be defined so easily. We are individuals, incapable of being generalized or objectified. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us individually. He gave us our individuality. He also gave us the capacity to look beyond the categories and see the individuals who are sharing this era on earth together, if we will only utilize that capacity. I pray we can learn to love the individual. I pray we can see each other as God sees us.
Look past the categories.
Look inside.
Find a way to love so mightily, it will crowd out the hate.
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