Love, on the Road to Damascus

Hate, the Saboteur of Truth

I don’t think I am alone in my infatuation with love these days. It is not viral but I am seeing more and more people open up and figure out where they stand. That is what evil will do for you, make you look for an alternative if it is scary enough. Evil, darkness, lies, depravity . . . hate. Some, like me, are having revelations.

The heavenly insights I am receiving from my brain antennae, and then storing in my HEART-drive, is that when hate is met with hate . . . hate not only wins, it grows! You can’t fight hell’s fire with hell’s fire because you will just increase hell’s fire and “Satan laughs and spreads his wings. AH LAWD YA!” (Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” - #radicalmetal). Not only does it not work, it sabotages justice, accountability and all the good intentions fueled by outrage.

Look, don’t we want to STOP the things we think are evil? Isn’t that the desired end-state? Think about that for a second. Do you want to stop what is evil, or do you just want to show everyone how mad you are? As usual, I am asking myself these questions and not yelling at anyone. I am guilty of all I criticize. I have to be honest with myself; is what I am doing and what I am feeling actually countering evil? Or is it just feeding it? My “road to Damascus” moment is that the only remedy is love. I aim to try and prove that because I have exhausted the alternative. But how does one love in a time like this?

Some may be incapable of it, and I accept the brutal reality that some people (most people) will not get it. Those people, who are justifiably outraged, without Love as their compass, will continue to sabotage their intentions and feed the beast they are trying to slay. But I get it now and I am responsible for cultivating it and sharing it . . . and here we are. I have to share it and I know some others will get it too, just like our heroes in the past got it from Bob Marley to Jesus, to Mahatma Gandhi. All of them understood how hate perpetuates itself. Love, on the other hand, is effective because it STOPS THE CYCLE. Here are some pointers that I am trying to follow while still early on my road to Damascus:

1. To paraphrase Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, “the border between good and evil runs through our own hearts.” There is a baseline of understanding of how capable we all are of terrible things. It’s easy to think we are inherently good when our biggest problem today was recycling a tower of Amazon boxes. I try not to be delusional on what I am capable. I understand I have a house to clean, a temple to sweep, to mitigate the gravitational pull toward hate.

   

   Luckily the inverse is true as well. We are also capable of tremendous power when we listen to our better angels. My new imperative and profound compulsion stems from my belief that Love is where I came from, and that Love is responsible for creation. I came from this eternal and joyful and peaceful substance and believe I am, in fact . . . made from it. I have the authority and the wherewithal to bring it from my origin and into this material plane. If my focus is there, then the energy and power will follow, but I must be be aware of both tendencies . . . shedding the hate and fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) while cultivating Love as best I can.

2. I need to work to adopt a different perspective by zooming out from the disturbing and rage-igniting actions of this world, to identify that which can encourage optimism. Last week I talked about life’s sticks. Everything thrown at us has a positive and a negative side, and we have the freedom and power to choose which side to grab. (We are given contrast for a reason BTW, it helps us refine what we want to see in the world.) A recent example for me working towards optimism in the age of Epstein; instead of hating those who we now know are protecting PDFs, I am working on being grateful that all of this is being dragged into the light. There are also encouraging signs that the world won’t let them get away with it; to include right wing pod casters like Shawn Ryan who have tremendous followings. I am also positive about what MLK said, “”The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. Recent disclosures have exposed a darkness we have not met before but I am grateful we have a promising chance to expose and sanitize this part of our history!

3. I believe that only Love can put power behind what is true, while darkness and hate will only work to sabotage truth. I don’t think we can afford to sabotage truth in a time like this. Truth loves accountability. Accountability loves justice. Neither have a chance without Love.

Let me sum up with a question: do we want to make the evil worse or would you like to see the moral arc bend more towards justice? If you choose justice then you have to choose love. Otherwise your justice will get poisoned and be corrupted into something else. Love is the only antidote to the poison we are currently drowning in. Accountability is fickle without love. This is my revelation! This is the “why” we have to choose love and put in the work to understand it.

Love is the only answer and it is not a cliché to me anymore. It has been a long road for me, littered with lesson after lesson of how hate is not only futile, but causes asymmetric detriment. I was stopped on “the road to Damascus” and Love said, “Why are you persecuting yourself and others?” And now I am busy cleaning my own house; cutting out the FUD and getting back to peace, joy and Love . . . eternal trinity from which I came. What a gift!