Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The Effort of Hate

The Dixie Chicks won five Grammy Awards this weekend. One of them for their song "Not Ready To Make Nice". I downloaded it several months ago from iTunes. Here are the lyrics if you aren't familiar with them:

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

I'm through, with doubt,
There's nothing left for me to figure out,
I've paid a price, and I'll keep paying

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I know you said
Why can't you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and I kind of like it

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting
They won on Sunday.

Saturday I was enjoying my Free Time during our church's annual Women's Retreat. I had gone to the mall and was on my way back to the retreat center. I passed a man who had what appeared to have originally been a small pickup truck. He had built a "shell" around it. It was really too big for that little pickup. But it first told me to REPENT! and then, in big, bold, garish, assaulting letters it railed against homosexuality in general and "Gay Marriage" in particular.

These two things happened pretty much within 24 hours of each other. But last October I had a brief conversation with Juror Number One from the Scott Peterson murder trial. My husband and Greg were friends in high school and their reunion was last October. When Normy realized that the guy on TV was his old friend he sent him an email. Normy told him thanks for the sacrifice he made and hard work he put in. He also told Greg that he made him proud and represented the old school well.

When we spoke to Greg about the whole thing, he told Norm how much he appreciated the email. He said something about how frighteningly easy it was for people to get his contact info... like Norm had. Norm told him "I got it out of the last reunion book". Greg looked a bit relieved and told us that not only did he get email, but snail mail too. With death threats.

So this weekend's events against the knowledge that Greg had gotten death threats and his family had been harassed by complete strangers got me thinking about The Effort of Hate.

How can the words that someone says, send someone so over the edge that they write a letter saying a life will be over?

It was easy for Norm to get Greg's email. Greg had, in effect, given it to him. He went to the cabinet where all such things are kept and got it. But Norm knows Greg. Perfect strangers had to take time out of their lives to search for that information. Then they had to compose the hate mail. Some of them had to then affix a stamp and take it to a mailbox. Others simply hit "send". These aren't friends and relatives of Scott Peterson, no no. These are total strangers. People who personally knew none of the principles involved.

That man with that truck? The time and money it took to create this display of hate. The effort it took to make sure it was street legal. What would have happened if he had put that kind of money and effort, and in the name of his god, fed the hungry? But instead, he chose to spread hate the name of his god.

And those people who sent death threats to Natalie Maines? It took effort too. What if they had expended that energy sending care packages to soldiers serving overseas? They chose to tell her to "Shut Up and Sing" instead.

The Effort of Hate.

Imagine a world where the energy put into hating was re-channeled into doing something out of love and compassion instead. Imagine that instead of saying "You don't have the right to...." be who you are, who you were born, voice your opinion, come to a different conclusion than I did, worship your god, love who you do, feel differently than me, be smart, be successful, be beautiful, be wealthy, be poor.... Imagine that instead, we simply said "You are a child of God and have sacred worth".

You don't have to agree except perhaps to agree to disagree. You don't have to adopt "the other way" as your own.

Imagine a world where it was OK to be...... Not just like me, like you, like them, like us.

To simply.... be.

Imagine a world where no one made an Effort to Hate.

8 comments:

Dirpus said...

Actually, I purposely took the time to hand write a note and sent it with a Christmas card to him and his family. I thought he deserved something more personal than an e-mail.

Nancy D. said...

I stand corrected.

Martha in CA said...

Brilliant!!

Anonymous said...

I also recommend "Dear Mr. President" by Pink. I heard it for the first time today and immediately put it on my iPod. I've never been a big fan of Pink's music. I am now.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is me. Forgot to add that. Oops.

Sharon

Nancy D. said...

Yea.... Dear Mr. President is on the iPod too... Good one that....

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nancy D. said...

Anonymous commentary is subject to removal. (Unless you're my sister or my mother who really oughta get their own accounts anyway.)