The Path out of Hatred

I have a distinct memory of the first time I seriously meditated on the reading from 1 John that we hear in today's Mass. Especially this part:

Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall. Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:9-11).

I was about 14 years old, but it wasn't my brother I hated. It was my father. I was walking the two miles home from my Lutheran church where I had just left the Bible study for adults during our summer Vacation Bible School. (After confirmation in 8th grade we were considered adult Christians; "youth ministry" had yet to arrive on our scene in any serious way.) We were studying First John, and this passage was afronting me. I had muttered often within myself about how I hated my father, basically for as long as I could remember. It really wasn't primarily my personal reaction to his absense since my parents' divorce or his drunken phone calls that terrorized our house from time to time. Mostl y, in hindsight, I was mimicking the behavior of other family members. It was how I learned to be a human.

But then this Scripture got in my face. As I walked home that summer evening, I had to face the fact that God was telling me I was in darkness, even though I said I was in the light, and was a Christian. Even though Lutherans don't really do this, I had given my life over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ when I was 10 years old, because I heard the gospel explained by a group of kids who had gone on a mission trip to Jamaica and were telling about what they did there. At the time, we were very sporadic in church attendance and my only experiences of personal prayer involved threatening God that if He didn't do something for me, I'd become a Satanist instead. 

As I thought about actually being in darkness, I really didn't know what to do about it. It was years before I learned that I needed to ask God for specific help, and that He would respond. God was not yet that personal to me. I just turned over in my mind the prospect that the truth was, I was living in darkness and was blind. 

Two years later, at 16 I found myself unable to escape being in a talk about the effects of alcoholism in the family. (This was the type of thing I'd branded "stupid" and "boring" and had avoided like the plague all my life.) The Holy Spirit gently poked open the gaping sore that was aching, broken heart. Like a baby breaking its waters in preparation for birth, the hatred I surrounded myself in showed itself to actually be pain. As I sobbed and wailed uncontrollably, strangers came to my side, and their presence was unspeakable balm, almost like an incubator, that nourished me through three long years. (And yes, I mean just those few minutes they spent then; I really did not have contact with them significantly, later on.)

At 19 the Lord brought more strangers into my life, and through them I learned about the person of the Holy Spirit. At that point I finally experienced that I could reach out to the Lord in faith and speak to Him, personally. I could ask Him to give me grace and help. I could expect Him to respond. He did actually respond. God became not simply the distant Lord and the Truth, but my Father. 

Which of us really knows how to pray? It is so true that God meets us wherever we are and is able to orchestrate everything to bring us to Him. Let us never lose hope for ourselves, or for anyone trapped in the blindness of hatred.