There was a line in a book I just finished, it was the kind
of line that you might easily skim over without really noticing. It wasn’t
really relevant to the story directly, but more as part of the arc of the
series. It was sort of a side note. It was a reference to two ancestors of the
family, two brothers who had hated each other so much that they painted a black
line down the middle of the foyer of their ancestral home, so that each would
remember to keep to their own wing of the house. They didn’t think of the consequences
of the mark they left behind. Generations later, it was a mark that their
descendants saw every day. In observing that line years later the young protagonist’s
words were, “How sad I thought, their hatred had outlived them.”
A few words simply slipped into the postlude of a story. Yet
for me, those were the most powerful words in the whole story. The rest of it
fell away and I honestly stopped breathing for moment when I felt the weight of
them. It’s not that I feel as though I live a hate filled, nor sadly, a hate
free life, but I know that lately I’ve been feeling the weight of all the
hatred being tossed around in the world, whether in politics, in the media, or
between family, friends and neighbors.
Is that what we
collectively want to outlive us? Are we willing to let the hate and animosity
be so much louder than the love and kindness? What is the mark we want to leave
behind for others who follow us to see? Do we want our descendants to look back
at a house divided by the black mark of hatred?
I know there is love
in the world, and kindness overflowing. Yet somehow still we are making a
choice collectively to focus on the division, the bitterness, and the hatred. I
know that to be true because of what I hear and see and read. If we, all of us,
demanded a focus on the good, if we only consumed and shared the good, that is
what would dominate the airwaves, and the internet, and our hearts. Where we
focus our attention is what we will see and create, whether you call it the law
of supply and demand, or the law of attraction.
