Fair ye be sure, but cruel and unkind...

Fair ye be sure, but cruel and unkind

Fair ye be sure, but cruel and unkind,
As is a tiger, that with greediness
Hunts after blood; when he by chance doth find
A feeble beast, doth felly him oppress
Fair be ye sure, but proud and pitiless
As is a storm, that all things doth prostrate;
Finding a tree alone all comfortless
Beats on it strongly, it to ruinate.
Fair be ye sure, but hard and obstinate,
As is a rock amidst the raging floods:
Gainst which, a ship, of succor desolate,
Doth suffer wrech both of herself and goods.
That ship, that tree, and that same beast, am I.
Whom ye do wrech, do ruin, and destroy

--Edmund Spenser


What a dark poem.  This man is all of these things; the ship who ruins herself and the goods, the tiger hunting the blood, and the tree alone and without comfort.....why? Because of hate.  Hate is so contagious because it can mask itself with every bit of necessary beings possible.  It can fit any mold of anything a person feels they need.  That is why it is so contagious and so dangerous. 
Everyone hates. At one point or another everyone hate somethings, someone, anything at some point in their life.  It is inevitable. 
Think you dont hate?  Do you hate....cancer, death, sickness, childhood pornography, rape, murder, war, terrrorism, gay, lesbian, religious, atheist, annoying, slutty, shameless, mean, dirty, immature, too mature, drugs, alcohol........I can guarantee you shook your head to one of these things.  We always find something in this world to hate.  Are all of those things above bad to hate?  No, not necessarily.  I mean, I hate childhood pornography, and i hate drugs.  I wouldn't say its bad to hate those things, not at all.  However, what IS bad, is that this hatred i have for these things begin to clothe themselves in the everyday things I love.  I love my family, but my uncle who is so far gone into the world of cocaine I dont think we shall ever get him back.....and sometimes it makes me hate him.   But, do i REALLY hate him.....?    
No.  Yet, when in the middle of our hatred that we can justify, it takes on a mask and begins to cloud our judgement as it latches onto the things we hold dear, such as family, friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc.  And we then begin to see them both so closely together that we hate one thing so we must hate both. 

"I hate drugs, and he does drugs, so I hate him, he had a choice."

But did he? Do you really know him well enough to say he had a choice?  Do you know this for sure?

"I hate gay people, its against my religion.  A boy in my church is gay, and I hate him for his sins, he had a choice."

Did he?  Can we really say that we are 100% sure that they have a choice? 

"I hate sluts, and that girl over there is pregnant, I hate her and her sluttiness, she had a choice"

Did she?  How do you know for sure she wasnt taken advantage of by a family member and this is the terrible end result, to which she must remain silent to if she wishes to live and keep her baby alive?  Do you know this is the case for sure that she was simply being 'slutty'???

What if it were you?  WHat if you were raped and found yourself to be pregnant with a child that you never wished to exist?  Would you enjoy the comments made by those in your church of your unspoken belly growing.  Could you handle the whispers of how you are supposedly addicted to coke because you're bored, and not becuase when you came out of your mothers womb you were already addicted because of her wrongdoings, not yours?  Could you handle being tortured, screamed at, and abandoned because you simply could not follow the sexual norms despite how hard you try to make a better 'choice' for yourself. 

Would you believe that any of these people would CHOOSE this fate? 

If so, then you are being masked with hatred clinging to those in your life you are to love; everyone.  If Jesus walked besides you when you wittnessed these people, would you still say these things? Would you still make these accusations and offenses? 

I highly doubt it. 

I constantly find myself in a state of confusion between what aspect i need to hate, and what is appropriate.  I go by the rule 'hate the sin, not the sinner' despite how absolutely wretched and hard this is to do. 
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!

It means you must walk alongside all of these people while you swallow the pill of hatred and feel it burn inside you until it fizzles out and your vision is cleared.  Completely and totally uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary if you want to live, and by live i mean bask in God's love. 

I recently wittnessed a brilliant woman open up about her sexuality.  This woman could make any man i have met to this day look like a dim stone on the ground of intellect.  Yet, she was hated, and she knew it to her very being.  You see, to most, her being is an oxymoron; Gay and Christian.  Those two things are NOT supposed to be put together in the same sentance without a NOT in between them, separating them completely.  How sad.   How sad that such a brilliant woman whose cup is absolutely overflowing with God's love is corked by the hatred of her "Brothers and sisters in Christ".  Yet, where there is OBVIOUSLY the love of Christ pouring out of this woman, they only see the hate that they have allowed to be attached to her being.  How sad.....but even more sad to those who will not take the time to get to know her and have the impact I had.  How sad for them indeed.

How sad for me, everytime i mistakenly hate a person for their druguse after a long history of drugs in my family.  How sad for me that i jepordize the chance to meet someone that God himself intended for me to help.  Yet, I just let my calling pass me by time and time again.  Dont we all......

How sad that we set aside God's plan for us when it means we have to get a little dirty, and let the 'filth' of those we  HATE so much get all over us.  Yet, it is only in that filth that we can truly understand them, and thus miss out on the happiness of doing God's works. 

We are the tiger, hunting those around us when we smell their blood and taste our hate.  We track them down, and we put them in their place......separating ourselves from everything and everyone around us while we become a dead, lifeless and lonely tree in the middle of a dead field because we strangled the life out of all that we were surrounded with.  We begin to hate more, and before we know it, that hate attaches to ourselves and we become the ship, taking ourselves under both ruining the ship and all the goods.  We are nothing all because we let the hate we justify attach itself to the things in this life that we are supposed to hold dear; everyone. 

How would you feel if God himself showed you the day you stomped all over the Gay kid at school, denying him access to love when that child was supposed to grow up and lead you to happiness.  Would there be some remorse there since all the sudden you realized he was going to make you happy, and that it was in Gods plan for him to be in your life, despite what YOU had in mind.  Perhaps then we would realize the shame we have upon us each and every time we do this.

I make small steps.  Whenever I hear that hate in the back of my mind climb over the person i see in my head i try to think "What if this person was here because of God's doings?"  And that hate runs away to hide, and i see the person for who they truly are. 

I used to be hated because I didn't love God.  What a terrible person I was indeed, the Anti-Christ I was, according to my fellow classmates.  I never said I didn't love God, i Said i didnt understand HOW to love God......yet, their hate for all those who didn't walk besides them climbed over me, and denial set in.  Thus, I was literally denied the love of Christ himself.  I was a feminist who loved Gay people because they were people too, so there was no room for me in God's kingdom, so I was informed. 
Then comes a man who looked past it; his hate didn't climb all over me and the smile I met remains there now.  "I dont know Christ" i said, and he replied "It doesn't mean he doesnt know you" he responded, and thus I was granted access to this God everyone spoke of, who owns my heart today. 

You know what would have happened if he had let his hate get in the way of seeing me?   There would be no wedding to come on June 24th, 2011 because the hate would have kept us apart.

Maybe the impact of hate wont be as great in your life as it was for mine, but maybe the impact of YOUR hate could impact someone ELSES life to this extreme......so think outisde of yourself, because if you don't, you will become the ship that destroys itself and all the goods, and that hate that you once had allowed those you hated to prosper over you as you self destruct. 

Love, and love all......Christ is in your heart, and if he TRULY is in control, you will love everyone and everything, even if it takes every ounce of your energy. 

<3