James Baldwin once wrote that people cling to their hatreds because they don’t know how to deal with pain. In this way, hatred should not simply be understood as a monstrous action to frown upon but a kind of addiction, a numbing salve that helps people cope with suffering. To treat hatred as merely evil and respond by merely looking down upon it is to fail to treat it with the herbs and medicines necessary to transform it. We do not treat drug or alcohol addicts by looking down upon them. (At least, not when we are our best selves.) We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time in the sense that we recognize that addiction is both harmful to addicts’ friends, family and loved ones, and harmful to the addicts themselves.
This is lovely. Clinging to hatred IS suffering. This is what Jesus taught. We all get hurt; we all sooner or later hurt each other. The creative challenge of being human is to learn to forgive. Not sanctimoniously, with the implicit intention of somehow humiliating our "enemy" via some kind of moral superiority. No, wholeheartedly, out of love. This only becomes possible when we come to accept that we actually are in need of forgiveness ourselves. It's not rocket science, so to speak. But this essential message of Christianity seems to be the most misunderstood message in the world.
This is lovely. Clinging to hatred IS suffering. This is what Jesus taught. We all get hurt; we all sooner or later hurt each other. The creative challenge of being human is to learn to forgive. Not sanctimoniously, with the implicit intention of somehow humiliating our "enemy" via some kind of moral superiority. No, wholeheartedly, out of love. This only becomes possible when we come to accept that we actually are in need of forgiveness ourselves. It's not rocket science, so to speak. But this essential message of Christianity seems to be the most misunderstood message in the world.