Like everyone I know, Paris is on my mind. People ask me what I think. They tell me what they think. They ask me why, since I write about everything, I haven’t written about Paris yet.

Part of the answer is that I am slow. I’ve written of this before. I am slow to process feelings and emotions.

I CAN process either one pretty well. I have flashes of anger as much and as strong as anyone else. And I live in a work world where I am constantly having to make business decisions, trusting my fairly quick mind to help me make good ones. But when I try to reconcile the two and truly understand what’s going on in me, and make my head and heart come together it takes time. And so when something like Paris, or the bombings in Beirut, or 9-11 happens, I am quiet.

I don’t understand hate and the kind of anger that simmers and eats people from the inside and causes them ultimately to very deliberately do harsh, hurtful things. I am not naive. I know that it exists. I’ve experienced it. I see evidence of it all around my world. People and organizations and nations so full of anger they forget there are people, precious, tender people, at the other side of their hate.

I can remember as a kid being very upset with myself at not being able to sustain anger. My father was brutal towards me. Some might call it abusive (I haven’t made up my mind even now on that front.) And I can remember many many times a day or two after the pain of a battle with him, wishing I could hold my anger, wishing I could just hate him. It would have been easier than carrying the mix of love, fear, hurt and anger that I lived with for many years.

And as an adult, there have been and are people who have made judgments on me or people I know and love based on “their” truth, never bothering to learn the whole story, shutting down the story in fact with their anger and abuse. They have and will continue to tell me all that is wrong with me in the most vehement and painful ways they can imagine. It’s no big deal because we all have experienced it. It’s a common human thing. We see the same thing with groups and nations. Does Westboro Baptist Church ever pause to learn the struggle of the young women they revile outside abortion clinics? Did the people who carried out the killings in Paris stop and have a cup of coffee and learn the stories of the people they would about to shoot? Of course not.

That would involve caring about people. Not people as a symbol. Not people we imagine, but people as individuals.

And one thing I have learned in life is that if we spend some time face to face with the people we despise and hate, and really listen, hate becomes hard. Because we all go through pains and sufferings that are similar. And when we start to see what we share, hate becomes more difficult. Despising people becomes more difficult.

It’s uncomfortable to do that sometimes. We’re likely to hear things we don’t want to hear. Suddenly we can’t reduce the other person’s foibles to a couple of slogans and catch phrases. Conversation with people on other sides of things is challenging, multi layered, no longer sound byte stories but this messy mix of good and flawed that is part and parcel of all of us.

I laugh sometimes when people ask me to tell something about myself. Depending on my choice, I could paint a picture of a terribly flawed, struggling, pitiable person, or some sort of uber semi-saint. I try to find the balance that is more truthful. I live. I struggle. I do some things well. I fail sometimes. I am a work in progress. I hope, truly hope, that the listener will give me some grace for my flaws, and don’t raise my good stuff too high.

But that requires listening. Caring. And taking time. Time most of us don’t have. Caring that is dangerous because it might rob us of our precious preconceptions.

And that’s why I don’t understand hate, I guess. Because hate reduces people to symbols, or something or someone who is a one dimensional creation of our own interpretations, not a real person. Not worth giving our time to. Not worth listening to. Worth only destroying.

And that is not what people are. Even the simplest person we meet, if we take the time to listen, has a rich tapestry of a story.

My heart breaks for Paris. It breaks for Beirut. Those who were killed in Iraq the same week while attending a funeral brings a deep sadness to me. And I find myself sad when I hear people talk of hating this person or that person, because (insert sound byte here.)

How do we move to that place? How do we move that far that people don’t matter, only the symbol, only the hate? I don’t know, and I don’t have a solution. Hate only breeds hate. Love breeds love, but is often sacrificed in the process. That’s all I know.

And people wonder why I pray.

Be Well. Travel Wisely,

Tom