Observations placeholder
John Greenleaf Whittier - from the Over-Heart
Identifier
008389
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
We might assume that hate is violent and aggressive, with active shows of dislike, but dislike is not hate. We can't like everyone, sometimes there are people we don't much like. But we don't have to hate them, we can just accept they are as they are and they just happen to be someone we don't really want to be with.
Hate is wishing ill of something or someone, whether in thoughts or in deeds. It is not caring about them. You show as much hate when you push in front of somebody in a bus queue, or use the disabled bay at a supermarket when you are not disabled, or make everyone wait at a petrol station whilst you swan around looking for sandwiches, make fraudulent insurance claims, fiddle your benefit claim, say you are ill when you are not to get redundancy money or sick pay, as you do if you hit them violently with a hammer.
Hate is hate, in whatever form.
A description of the experience
John Greenleaf Whittier – from the Over-Heart
Gone be the faithlessness of fear
And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain
Wash out the altar's bloody stain;
The law of Hatred disappear
The law of Love alone remain