In June of 2016, I went to a vigil for those who died in the Orlando shooting. I arrived too late to be part of the main event inside the building, as did several hundred others. Instead, we stood outside, holding our own homegrown vigil in the parking lot. We grieved, we cried, people gave speeches, we quoted Martin Luther King about Love overcoming Darkness.
In the midst of trying to come to terms with the grief, shock and anguish, a man made a statement that haunted me for days. It is a comment that is often spoken in the aftermath of horrific events like this. He said that hate is the absence of love. On the surface, the statement made absolute sense. If there is hate, love often feels absent, especially when looking from the outside in. But was love actually absent?
We know what hate feels like. We’ve all felt it at at least once in our lives. Hate is an extreme form of anger, mixed with intensely focused hostility. Hate is anger and hostility on steroids. Remember the face of the 2-year-old child screaming “No!!” at the top of their lungs when they are told they must behave in a certain way? We were that 2-year-old once, even if we don’t remember what evoked such anger and hostility. Merriam Webster invites us to understand that hate usually derives from fear, anger, or sense of injury. Anger, plus hostility, plus fear or hurt. A negative, toxic, and sometimes deadly brew. If left unaddressed and unchecked, it erodes at best and destroys at worst the hater, the object of hate, and unintended bystanders that get in the way. Given this description, love clearly seems absent. But is it really?
The words that jump out at me in the midst of all this intellectualizing are “fear”, “hurt” and “sense of injury”. We could not be frightened, hurt or injured if Love was not present. Hurt and injury come from a felt lack of caring. Caring is a prominent, demonstrable characteristic of Love. The person we despise doesn’t care about us. Who we are, what we want, or what we believe doesn’t matter. If they cared, they would change. What we want would matter. They would right the wrong in a manner pleasing to us. They would make us feel comfortable. But caring is being withheld. But to be withheld, caring had to be present in the first place.
And yet, in the presence of all the hate and anguish and horror of that day, Love and caring were present, not absent. They were present in those who helped others stay safe. They were present in those who responded. They were present among those of us who grieved and prayed. They were present as a reminder that, even in the midst of horrendous tragedy, we are capable of caring for and loving one another.
And maybe if we loved and cared for one another enough, we wouldn’t have to go through another day like that one. Because Love and caring would overshadow all hate and gave it nowhere to live in our hearts.