Hate can be a hard lumpy mean thing that settles in a person’s soul. It is so easy to despise and hate what we don’t know. We formulate our mean little opinions of people based on what exactly? What the media tells us? What other people tell us? What misinformed emails tell us? What our own prejudices and biases tell us? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? All the current pettiness serves one big purpose. It keeps us divided and suspicious of one another! There’s no doubt that even the best examples of humanity can Fall Prey to harboring evil within the soul. Even Mother Theresa admits to a “dark night of the soul“. I know I fall prey to periods of xenophobia when the nightly news has terrorized me out of my mind! Lately I am just so tired of the smallness, the meanness, the incivility among Americans and world citizens. When did we forget that we are all in this together? I don’t want to be made afraid of tomorrow all the time. I don’t want to keep hearing vile rhetoric from both political parties. I don’t want to feel that if I disagree with someone’s political opinion that I will be labeled. I don’t want anymore people fighting in wars that will never have any winners - only losers on both sides. I just want to be free. Freedom just doesn’t feel much like freedom anymore. It all feels pretty oppressive lately.