Hate Has No Home Here – El Odio No Tiene Hogar Aqui
I took a long walk one day in January, my first since before Thanksgiving, when the holidays and holiday travel, and rainy weather, put my regular walking routines on hold for two months. And on this walk in January, along the way, I encountered and paused at multiple places and locations that for me were places of significance and meaning. This posting features one of those scenes that paused my steps and mind.
The photo of this posting is of a sign in the grass space between the street and sidewalk in front of a house I was passing. This is the same house that I wrote of more than a year and a half ago in my posting titled, “A Tale of Two Signs, of Two Minds and Hearts, of Two Paths & Perhaps a Cautionary Tale”, that, at that time, had a different sign in place. (See link below.)
This new sign was very eye-catching, with the same message written boldly on both sides, and with its vivid red, white and blue coloring, and the placement of the American flag within a heart. Also, the message is very easily understood – “Hate Has No Home Here” – and is proclaimed in English and five other languages – Arabic, Korean, Hebrew, Urdu, and Spanish which I can read – “El odio no tiene hogar aqui”. The message, simplicity itself, expresses in a few words what is so timely and needful in our nation, in our homes and hearts, and upon our lips.
To me, this is also so reminiscent of the beautiful command and truth of Proverbs 3:3-4, which instructs us to bind kindness and truth around our necks – to make them visible in our actions and words – and to write them on the tablet of our hearts – that kindness and truth would deeply abide with us and be an animating force within our lives – so that our actions and words would be a blessing upon others and that we would find favor with God and man. Favor – the precious things that we cannot buy with money, but that we can only receive as gifts – kindness, gratitude, the trust and smile and wave goodbye of a small child we just met, the love and crushing hug of an adult grandson, peace of mind, close friends who listen and care for us, hope for today and for many tomorrows, and the opportunities we are given with family, friends, and complete strangers, who with our words, find comfort and encouragement along their way – all gifts.
Proverbs 3:3-4
3. Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
4. So you will find favor and good repute
In the sight of God and man.
Also, the placement of the American flag in the heart, links our homes to the soul of our nation, to the physical place in which we abide, share our lives, and dream, and to our own individual heart from which compassion, caring, and the pursuit of peace emanate. And it is this heart over which we must daily, even constantly, it seems, guard and protect from listening to and believing and acting upon the many calls and whispers, strident and subtle, to hate and fear, resent and blame, and disregard and oppress, whoever – which people, which persons – are the political or social target of the moment, or the month.
For hate only shatters our own hearts into knife-like shards of animosity and anger. And unchecked hate will surely break us apart as a nation and a people – as intended by those who campaign with, preach, and utilize hate and what is evil, for their own political self-exaltation, or ideological, or economic gain. An intention shared and intensified into a destructive hope by all those aligned against us as a people, a democracy, and a nation.
For those of darkening hearts, who support evil men and the evil they promote and instill – political and social chaos and blame-shifting and mistrust of our governmental institutions, mindlessness and the propagation of lies, hostility, induced fears and anxiety – are on a path that leads inevitably only to a legacy of self-destruction and a barren and poisoned landscape for generations to come, and inexorably to shame and an utter destruction of one’s own mind and soul, and to judgement – for if by our cheers or silence we partake in evil, we will also surely share in its judgement. Challenging and resisting this rising darkness of hate within and upon our land, is an absolute personal and national imperative of our times – as it has been for centuries.
As written on the sign, we cannot allow hate to be at home within us, to abide in our lives. Resisting with our will, and repudiating with our voices, all calls to violence and godless evil thinking – and banishing enflamed hate-filled anger and resentments, petty or enlarged, from our hearts and from the social, political, spiritual, and everyday language of our tongues – is indeed the only hope for beginning the process of reuniting and healing the politically promoted divisions and fissures within our nation.
For only a national commitment to justice, and truth and kindness, and honesty and genuine goodwill – as etched in our minds and hearts since school days as “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all” – values I have always thought of as our national goals to which we have not yet arrived at, but to which we are always to strive towards – can reunite us and keep us together and strong as a unique nation of multiple diverse peoples.
Or more simply put – Hate Has No Home Here
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To view “A Tale of Two Signs, of Two Minds and Hearts, of Two Paths & Perhaps a Cautionary Tale”, please use the link below.
To view all posts in the Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces, please use the link below.
Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
Powerfully expressed, Chris. Thank you. Hate rages in the land, but we have to resist adopting it ourselves. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”