sometimes hate doesn’t look so obviously like hate.

it can look like a government taking away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, or banning books, or attempting to erase BIPOC history and the sin of slavery/racism, or the existence and dignity of LGBTQ+ persons/families. sometimes it looks like people working to restrict or suppress the right to vote or dismantling the foundations of democracy and moving toward authoritarianism. it can also look like denying health care and allowing poverty, and hunger. sometimes hate is crowned with the language of being somehow loving and endowed by a god and embraced and even elevated into some sort of theocracy. no one is safe in that environment. even Christians may not be safe in a Christian theocracy. will Christian Nationalists decide that you are Christian enough? will you pass their litmus test?

none of the above look like love to me, at least not an all-inclusive big love. can love be anything less than that? i don’t think so. words and actions such as these, that cause so much harm and destruction, are not embodiments of love. and if God is love, which i do believe God is, then how can they be of God? instead, they seem to me to be embodiments of hate.

so, that’s where the work is. shining a light and doing the hard work of undoing the hate – transforming that energy, opening hearts, and healing the harm. we can do that with our voices, with our art, with our feet, with our money, with our vote.

~j

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