Fire

Please don’t let my fear turn to hate, because I hate hating.  I hate how it makes me feel inside and out.  The churning mushy mess that my insides become when a let my anger and upset find a target.  At first it feels a little good because hate feels more powerful than fear or love.  In hate we have the opportunity to control, to shrink others to a state of impotence.  With hate we could possible render “them” harmless.  Yes!  Wouldn’t that be ideal, to render harmless those people who make us angry?  We could crush them with our hate and make them go away forever.  We see it working all around us.  Angry people lashing out in an attempt to destroy.  And they do destroy and they do get what they want.  They get to be powerful.  They get to have a place for all of these feelings that are churning inside of me.  There is a powerful adrenaline in channeling our anger into hate.  We feel accomplished…  We did something about the thing we have no control over.  We were action against.  The painful burst of adrenaline that surges with hate, washes over the sadness and helpless that came before it.  It washes over those inactive feeling like paint over a scribbled on wall. 

But then I am left with the aftermath.  I am crashed on the rocks after I wrestle with hate; exhausted, exhilarated, and alone.  I have sometimes vanquish the enemy, but there is always another around the corner.  Because the better I get at anger and hating the easier it is to find the next enemy.  They are easy to find and what better way to recover than to find a new target for those powerful feeling that make me feel strong.  And then the cycle repeats.  

But when I choose love I must also choose acceptance.  I must realize that not all of it is in my immediate control.  If I choose love I must also choose faith, I must believe in the good in the world and be patient.  Being patient is not my jam.  I want to know and be guaranteed!  But when I  choose love I feel peace and joy and warmth in my insides.  I kindle a different fire that energizes me in a way that I can sustain.  Choosing love lays logs on the fire that sustains me so that I can keep finding mindful action.  I can only kindle the fire of love with connection, so I must do the daring thing and reach out to others, taking the chance that they will see me and meet me in the middle with their love.  There are no guarantees that we are using the same map and will find the meeting spot, but when we do it is a different exhilaration and this one leaves me energized and full.  Even when I choose love with those that would be easy to hate, I feel the fullness, because I have met myself in the place I want to be.  I have taken the road to generosity and love and met myself there to collect more wood for the fire that will slowly burn so that I can be a light.