This afternoon, while driving from Barre, VT to home, I stopped in a small town along the way to give blood. I do this often when I travel. Blood drives around my part of Vermont are uncommon and have the knack of being held when I am committed elsewhere. So, when I am out and about and see a Red Cross blood drive, I just pull in and give. I’ve given blood up and down the east coast, and once in Chicago. I’m not picky. I figure they are all well trained and it doesn’t matter where my blood goes, as long as it helps.

So I finished the questionnaires, give my blood, sit for the required number of minutes so the nurses know I won’t pass out when I leave and I walk out of the building….

….. When this big hairy guy, long hair, big beard, bugging out eyes is suddenly in front of me, practically frothing at the mouth, angry beyond words. At least any words that made sense. He just unloads on me, fists clenched, body shaking for about a minute. I’m waiting for the first blow, which I am sure will be a whopper and wondering if it will even do any good if I block it.  I felt, for that moment, like a helpless child.

When along comes a woman, his wife I am assuming, who shouts at him. “That’s not him. That’s not him!”

It took a second to get through, but it did, and he mumbled an apology and stomped up the stairs to the building I had just come out of. I took my adrenaline crashing body to my car and wondered if I should call 911, wondering if it even worked there, when stomped back out, got in his truck and drove off.

He was angry. And I had the sense he had been carrying some serious hate around for a long time.

When I was a boy, I used to wish I hated better, that I could hold a grudge. I particularly felt that way about my father, who was alternately loving and hateful as only alcoholics and those with a variety of emotional illnesses can be.

After a particularly brutal period, I would cry myself to sleep vowing I would hate him forever. And I never managed to do that. In fact rarely a day or two went by and I was largely over it. I’ve been battered and betrayed by people I trusted and cared for as much as I trusted and cared for myself, and always I would feel, in the moment, that I would never forgive, that I would carry that hatred forever. And I have always failed.

I just don’t hate well.

It’s not that I forget what was done. You don’t forget abuse unless you work hard to stick it in a closet somewhere. You don’t forget betrayal. The scars are always there, sometimes on the surface, sometimes just below. You don’t forget.

But I just don’t carry it very well. My anger flares, dies down and is gone. I can’t seem to nurse a grudge long enough to plot and stalk and do harm to someone.

There was a time in my life that I considered that a character flaw. I admired people who could carry that hate, because there are times I reasoned, that people deserve vengeance. My favorite novel, ever since 5th grade has always been The Count of Monte Cristo, were a young Edmund Dantes is falsely imprisoned and spend several years in prison, where he learns who his betrayer are. And when he manages an escape, and finds a fabulous fortune, spends much of it and much of his life seeing exotic and cruel revenge on his betrayers.

That, I would tell myself, is how a man hates.

Only I can’t do it. I’d like to think it is my faith that holds me back, for I am a Christian and my faith tells me that vengeance is God’s not ours. Our job is to love. God’s is to dispense justice. And I do believe that. But I don’t think that is why I can’t hate because I was like this long before I had a faith of my own.

I’d like to think it is because I am particularly good person, but I know better. I’m more of an averagely good person. I manage to live a good life some of the time. I fail sometimes. I pretty much have a list of flaws and life mistakes that is about the same length as most people. Different items on the list maybe, but about the same length.

And I’d like to think it is because I am wise. But I had that idea beaten out of me a decade or more ago. I am wise about some things, hopelessly stupid about others, blind on still others.

No, I can’t claim I hate badly because of any virtue. I think instead that I am bad at hate because I saw, and see, what it does to people.

It eats them alive. It eats the best of them and leaves something else. It consumes their time, their energy, their thoughts and it takes otherwise kind, thoughtful, creative people and turns them into something unrecognizable. Their joy is sucked out of them. Hate causes them to say and do things that somewhere deep inside they know are wrong. It causes them to justify causing hurt and lies and all kinds of actions that ultimately hurt. A whole slew of people, not just the person or group they hate. The collateral damage is huge.

I saw it at times in my father. I have seen it in other people. I still see it, like I did today. I’m sure that big hairy guy is a pussycat most of the time. And becoming that way scares me. Because I know how easy it is to give into hate. I have seen strong people, good people, give in to it, lose the best of themselves in it.

It’s like one of those cheesy “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” movies, only instead of a body they consume people’s heart and soul. And in ways, that is scarier.

Anger can be channeled to make good things happen. But hate? It only destroys. It ONLY destroys. It is also very real. Every time I go a while through life without being exposed to it, I get hit with a blast of it again. And it is no less frightening now than it was when I was a little kid.

If there is a difference.  I don’t cower any more. It scares me, sure. That is always my initial emotion. But at sixty years old, I have learned I can bear a the hate being thrown at me. but that fear passes.  I have learned how NOT to be paralyzed by it any more. have learned that generally peacefulness, truth and character always  I have learned to let the hate wash over me, even be afraid for a time, but to trust that the good emerges.

You see, we people are flawed, but there’s so much good out there. And I believe, Pollyanna that I am, that more often than not, good wins. It may take battles and cause casualties, but in the end, people still know the difference.

Of course, I could be all wrong. All my psyc exams over the years point to a tendency towards rose colored glasses and try as I might, I can’t seem to find corrective lenses for that. I could be wrong. Sometimes hate wins, and when it does, everyone loses.

That’s part of what scares me about the place our nation is in right now, politically. It is a season of hate and anger. I just can’t tell how much is anger, which we might channel into something positive and which will disipate, and how much of it is the seething, destructive, collateral damage causing kind of hate. I just don’t know.

It is what scares me about extreme religion, no matter what religion it is. Hate supplants the best, the true core of love that is at the heart of most mainstream faiths. What is anger? What is hate? It’s easy to tell because hate destroys, always destroys. Love builds up. Big difference.

I’ve been hated by a few. I still am. I’ve been a casualty of that hate. I may be again. People close to me have been casualties, And there are those who believe the only way to fight hate is hate. And they may be right.

I am just not good at it.

And I’ve stopped trying. I’d rather live in a place of forgiveness. I have yet to see anyone damaged by forgiveness. I have yet to see collateral damage from forgiveness. I have never seen lives hearts and souls damaged by forgiveness.

It’s not easy. In fact, it crazy hard sometimes. I fail sometimes, for a while. But I know this, forgiveness never consumes me. I can be my best me living in forgiveness instead of constant hate. So who cares if the other person deserves it? Not me. This is a place where I am willingly, happily, joyfully selfish. Forgiveness helps me. And if it helps someone else? Well, that’s nice.

But me? I’m taking my rose colored glasses and walking away.

Be well. Travel Wisely.

Tom

PS: That’s not even the best story about my giving blood today, but the other one will wait till another day.