Hatred rings out in the world like the shrill clash of metal against metal; the hammer against the nail.

Hatred is the force of darkness that covers the face of the earth, reaping destruction where it goes.

Hatred is most often aroused by our self-righteous resentments. It is easier to shoot the villains, to seek retribution for the satisfaction of our moral feelings, than to get at the root of villainy or to transform the villain. It is easier to kill bad people than to build bridges.

The passion hatred, which periodically sweeps through people like a storm is almost always misdirected. It is easier to kill the villain than to build bridges of trust and understanding.

Ethnic mistrust breeds and thrives on hatred. It is hatred that breeds apartheid, anti-semitism and other forms of ethnic mistrust. Hatred causes strife in places like Yugoslavia, Palestine, South Africa and Los Angeles.

The actions of that hatred often create poverty, sin and human misery. What a difference it would make if our hatreds were redirected.

"Hate the evil, love the good, and you will establish justice," said Amos.

Hatred does not begin on such a full-scale level. It begins within each one of us. When our rights, our goals, our interests, our jobs are threatened Ä these things which are so central to our identity, our purpose, our being Ä it is then that we strike out in fear and hatred.

Bishop Nygren once put it this way in a commencement address at Carthage College:

Let us imagine that we are walking on a large plain. We can see in all directions. If I look around, I see the line of the horizon like a line of a circle. Where does this circle have its center? Answer: Just where I happen to stand! Wherever I view the world I always stand quite naturally in the center. Wherever I go, I take the center with me. Wherever I am, I have always the zenith above me. All the lines from the horizon converge in the individual "I" at the center. It belongs to the nature of the "I" to occupy a central position. Theoretically viewed this creates very little difficulty. Even if I see everything from my own point of view, even if it appears to be so for me, as if I were the center of the universe -- still I know that I am not the center of the universe, but just a small speck of the universe, chosen at random. I know how it is, and so this illusion does not have any serious consequences.

Great complications, however, develop within the sphere of the will and of human action. Here, too, there exists the same centralization around the individual "I." I see it clearly: it is my interest, my private business that is in the center. The interests of my fellow men are more or less on the outskirts. This is how man thinks of himself. And when there is a conflict between different interests, the fight begins: the fight between individuals, the fight between different social classes, the fight between the races, the fight between nations, the fight between East and West.

It must be so in a world without a real center, where everybody walks about having the center in himself.

Hatred grows out of a limitation which is forced upon us by having to live with one another and it reaches out to destroy that limiting presence. Hatred is the force and power of destruction. It leads away from life to death.

Psychologists tell us that the emotion of hatred produces more immediate effects on the chemical balance of the body than any other emotion, including fear, and that while the emotion itself may pass swiftly, the damage doesn't. "It's all over in a minute," we say. So is a cyclone ... but then the wreckage has to be cleaned up.

Hatred is also the cry from one who has not fully realized the purpose of his life. Like the baby who screams in rage, "Somebody took my rattle," men and women scream in blind rage, "Somebody stole my glory, somebody ruined my life, or the best years of it, somebody infringed upon my rights."

They say you can tell the size of a person by the size of the thing that makes the person mad. They also say that persons wrapped up in themselves make a small package. How often are anger, hatred, wrath aroused over this small package.

The world loves to tell us that what is most important is what makes "me" most important. The world loves to tell us that value is measured by the strength of my voice, the size of the group which will come and hear it; the world loves to tell us that value is determined by success, not lowliness. Success is the ability to stand while others fall, the ability to climb over and above the others.

Christ came preaching a different message. "Deny yourselves," he said. In humility count others better than yourselves. Look not merely to your own interest, but to the interests of others. Be even like me ... who came not among you to display power and glory, but to empty myself, to take the form of a servant.

Does the world like this standard? No, it loves only those who abide by the world's standards.

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I choose out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil agains you falsely on my account."

Anger, resentment, bitterness; show ostentation; power, conflict, hatred ring out like a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal; the harsh sound of metal against metal; the hammer against the nail-disrupting, bleeding, destroying human relationships. But the power that heals, that reconciles, that blesses us is more like the silence of eternity, interpreted by love.