Hate spills its guts

Continuing our journey throughout the Psalms:
"Have mercy on me, Lord! Just look how I suffer because of those who hate me. But are you the one who brings me back from the very gates of death so I can declare all your praises, so I can rejoice in your salvation in the gates of Daughter Zion."

The idea of having mercy because I suffer when people hate me is a bit foreign to me, as I strongly suspect it is to you.

Do you spend lots of time pondering how people hate you? The truth is I don't; nor do I spend lots of time pondering those I hate. Hate is such a difficult word, expression, notion to me. It really is.

But I understand with what has happened just in the past week in Ferguson, Mo., and at the University of Oklahoma, and even on campuses all over the country, perhaps we're not past such notions as a people.

What must we do?

Have mercy on us, Lord.

Just on college campuses in the past few months, Emory University, University of Cleveland and UC Davis buildings were vandalized with swastikas. At UC Davis, it was a Jewish fraternity. A UCLA student with great credentials was nearly prevented from joining the Judicial Board of the college because she was Jewish. And just days ago at George Washington University in Washington, D.D. large swastikas were discovered in one of the dorms.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

One report I read this morning says that almost half of all Jewish students in college today have experienced some sort of hate act against them.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

For a couple days this week, UC Irvine even banned displaying the American Flag.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

It is almost incomprehensible for me to understand how we can still hate each other, black against white and white against black and Gentile against Jew and Muslim against Jew and on and on and on we go.

In the latest statistics (from 2012), in December of that year, two Mississippi men pled guilty to federal hate crimes for assaulting African-Americans in Jackson. In November, a South Carolina man was sentenced for committing a hate crime against an African-American teenager. In September, a Cleveland man was convoked for religiously motivated assaults on members of the Amish community. The AMISH. In August, a Detroit man pled guilty to assaulting a victim because the thought the man was gay.

He THOUGHT the man was gay.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

Whatever you are doing this day as you read this, stop and ask the Lord to have mercy on us, his people, his children, as we try to figure out how to get along. We have the same issues in our churches, in our schools, in our government, in our homes. Progressive hate conservative, straight hates gay, even at times laity hate clergy. Hate is not relegated to the back burner, any longer. It rests comfortably in our homes and it starts school in pre-K and is educated up through the system. Uncommon core indeed.

It comes marching down our streets, throwing bottles and starting fires and we look up one day and policemen are shot and crowds, no matter their reasoning, cheer. It paints its hatred on walls, and on human skin, and on hearts throughout.

Have mercy on us, Lord. For we have most certainly sinned.