I learned about something new today:  the myth of “redemptive violence.”  In effect, when someone does something to offend or anger me, I have the right to be enraged and inflict violence on them, and that is key to my success.  The more I thought about it, the myth became apparent.  Anger is a hungry beast that has to keep eating.  It is an animal that eats its own tail and thence becomes bigger and hungrier.  Sometimes it doesn’t stop until someone is dead.  Something else has to stop it from eating.  Maybe it’s a gentle teacher on a playground breaking up a fight, or that friend who pulled me aside and told me to chill.  Violence doesn’t redeem.  But it sure makes me feel powerful in the moment.  When it’s in full, fiery bloom, we know that we can wreak all kinds of damage.  We can end or ruin many people’s lives right then and there.  We are gods unto ourselves – passing judgment and meting out punishment as we please.

After all the killing in the last month, I wonder if there’s any way out.  Are we going to eat ourselves up painfully until society goes to hell?  There has to be an answer.  Well, I also learned today just how simple the answer is, and that I’ve known it since I was born.  It’s called love.  Pure and simple.  I need to love my neighbor – who just happens to be everybody.  But it’s as simple as it is hard.  Of course, in addition to puppies, babies, my wife and my family, I have to love blacks, gays, Jews, and Muslims.  But does this mean that I have to love the guy who just cut me off in his 4×4 just to prove his manhood?  Or the selfish woman who took all the samples off the tray in Costco?  Yes, I do.  Yet I still often forget the simple answer.  The notion that I have to put my self aside and recognize that for all their differences, quirks, and downright idiocy, these people are made of the same stuff as me.  They live, they die, they have families, happy times and sorrow just like me.  But that’s harder than it sounds, and it already  sounds pretty tough.

Still, those are the easy ones.  What about those who hate?  What about all those recent killers, those twisted and sick people who just want to hurt everybody or a select few?  Seriously?  I have to love THEM?  Yeah, I think that’s the idea.  I struggle with that a lot. It feels like I’m handing victory to an enemy who wronged me.  But love doesn’t mean giving in or giving up or not defending myself or my family.  It does mean that the beast of rage and anger shouldn’t control my actions – or my thoughts, and that I recognize them as human beings.  I was taught to believe that God loves each and every one of us.  Am I so perfect that I can choose differently?

A wise preacher once related it this way:  many of us have been taught that God is love.  When we contemplate evil or Satan, we think the opposite – it’s all about hate.  But this man put a different spin on it.  Evil is selective love.  I will only love you if you’re rich or white or straight.  I will only love you if you stay in your own lane or let me get mine first.  And then anger gets a chance to grow and eat me up.

I can’t count how many times I’ve forgotten this.