The power of love transcends the power of hate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hate is a condition of madness, of darkness, of impurity. Love is clarity; love is light and purity. Hate is dirty; love is clean. Hate is the easy path, paved with a lack of self discipline and giving in to our baser natures: obtaining vengeance at the slightest wrong, acting wantonly without regard to the way it might affect others, selfishly taking what we want for ourselves when others are in need. Love is the hard path, full of difficult trials like forgiveness, suspending judgement, and moving on when we have been wronged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maintaining love is like keeping a spotless house: it means a constant vigil against the dust of others’ trespasses against us, and the cobwebs of their malignant acts which slowly accumulate as anchors to keep our hearts from flying to the heights. When others wrong us, when they victimize us, they leave an awful mess to clean up and sometimes even damage to the house that has to be repaired. Great trials can be like a house fire, leaving all kinds of terrible damage. But in the end we must cut away the blackened damage and replace it with freshly painted repairs, so that our house can once again be a place we’d like to live. To do otherwise is to inhabit a state of mind that we never would willingly, and makes defeat at the hands of another more complete and longer lasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one would want to live in a house that was burned, with holes in the walls and a partial roof that let the rain in, that smelled like smoke and had soot, cobwebs, and dirt everywhere. Why then should we be willing to walk around with our soul in such a state? If our homes were in this condition we would repair them without delay. The same urgency should be applied to ourselves: to scrub and cut the damage away, to patch, to repaint, until finally we are in a state that mirrors the fixed up and repaired house. Shining, looking new, making us feel good just to be alive. It is not an easy task, for we cannot manipulate ourselves as easily as we can work with building materials. And yet, it can be done — if it is our true will to become clean again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The power of love transcends the power of hate. Hate is a condition of madness, of darkness, of impurity. Love is clarity; love is light and purity. Hate is dirty; love is clean. Hate is the easy path, paved with … Continue reading