Lines, Walls, and Circles (a poem)

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Hate is a cancer. 
Hate consumes 
individuals,
groups,
communities
from the inside out. 
Hate seeks out and destroys
that which it cannot understand.
Hate masquerades 
as pietistic religiosity,
as egoic correctness,
as sanctimonious chatter
hiding its insidious presence
behind that which
it calls 
good
and 
righteous
and
faithful.
Hate draws lines 
of demarcation 
in the sand
and 
constructs 
walls of 
stone,
steel,
wire,
glass -
ever tightening 
walls of exclusion
constructed on an imaginary border
of codified 
behavior,
appearance,
allegiance,
and
beliefs
choking all that are living,
separating all life from its source,
and fear forms its foundation. 

Love . . .
Love 
conquers hate. 
Love 
dispels fear.
Love 
gives life. 
Love
births hope. 
Love 
seeks mercy.
Love
pursues justice.
Love
demands action. 
Love 
requires response. 
Love 
erases 
lines of division. 
Love 
tears down 
walls of hostility. 
Love
repairs 
the breach. 
Love
beckons all 
toward a new way. 
Love 
is 
ever increasing, 
ever widening 
concentric circles of 
acceptance
and inclusion
with limitless 
circumference. 
Love
does. 
Love
wins. 
  —bshivers 

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