The Hate of Love
William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“Without Contraries is no Progression.
Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”
As a student I was once invited to speak at a Christian conference about an evangelistic initiative I was involved in leading. Before going on stage, we were asked to share what we were going to say with the conference leader. I had a few lines in my spiel about the not-so-successful realities of running this programme – the doubts, downsides, and difficulties. I was told very kindly, and politely, to drop that bit: ‘Let the devil do his own work.’
This splitting of light and dark, positive and negative, love and hate, is very common in holy, ethical, and spiritual circles. It’s also at the heart of our increasingly cultish political ‘dialogue’ – which is bordering on the ‘diabolic’, which ironically, is rooted in the Latin word for ‘devil’: ‘diabolus’.
Us or Them
Red or Blue
In or Out
This or That
Victim or Perpetrator
Compassionate or Cruel
Traitor or Saint
Yes or No
Black or White
Left or Right
Friend or Fascist
Enemy or Ally
Feminist or Misogynist
Patriarch or Matriarch
Racist or Woke
Ignorant or Elite
I find it interesting that the word for the ‘devil’ is rooted in a duality. And I’m not convinced it is wise to ‘Let the devil do his own work’ – although I know such a phrase is highly effective in deflecting doubt, negativity, criticality, and judgment – especially for those who believe (or once believed) in such characters. Other classics I’ve heard: ‘We love everyone.’ ‘Let’s not judge.’ ‘Just be kind.’
These seemingly gracious, kind, and loving approaches to dealing with the reality of darkness are all too often used to shut down dissent, transparency, and interrogation. And, sadly they have been weaponised by predators, narcissists, and control-freaks. They might even be their favourite catchphrases to keep us in our place. For most of us, we say such phrases as a way of protecting our own reputations from the accusation of being judgmental, negative, gossipy, unkind, or ‘doing the devils works’.
Perhaps we need to find a place for hate instead of ‘letting the devil do his own work’ – which sounds a little dangerous and dodgy to me. I am not sure we should give our negativity, anger, and doubt over to the unconscious darkness. I don’t trust the devil to ‘do his own work.’ Even the agapeistic, all-loving, Christ calls us to ‘hate’:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
I think Christ’s controversial command to ‘hate’ points to the danger of confusing loyalty with love – as our reputation-protection, family-faithfulness, institutional-allegiance, and denominational-devotion can so often get in the way of our true calling to realise our deepest divine natures, and our place in the divine dance we call existence. Perhaps we have wrongly conflated love with tolerance, and hate with intolerance. It seems love and hate are two sides of the same coin. And as William Blake writes in ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’: “necessary to human existence”
There might even exist, a deeply helpful energy within our hate (which, of course, isn’t the opposite of love - fear is the opposite of love).
Contemplate what you ‘hate’ in your “father, mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters…” (and perhaps we could add to Christ’s list: husbands, preachers, pastors, priests, politicians, friends, colleagues, and little egos) – and ask what that hate might create - or may have already made - in the darkness of your own psyches:
Inauthenticity may lead to a love of integrity
Snobbery might stir your heart for the underdog
Blatant favouritism may foster an instinct for fairness
Unfulfilled dreams can inspire you to reach for the stars
Not much interest in your life can liberate an independent spirit
Closed-mindedness can open a life of questions, curiosity, and criticality
Secrecy might mean more authenticity
Repression to expression
Unpredictable chaos to a calm orderliness
Self-obsession to an interest in others
Manipulation to communication
Destructive addictions to a beautiful vulnerability
A fearful sense of lack to a worthy call to adventure
Insecure charm to a genuinely grounded presence
Superficiality to Soul
Legalism to Love
Orthodoxy to Paradoxy
Ultimatums to Abundance
Control to Subversion
Lies to Truth
The darkness is the birthplace of Light
The darkness is the ground of your Being
The darkness is the home of your Diamonds
The darkness is the muddy soil of your Lotus Flower
The darkness is not for the devil
You cannot love without hate
You cannot hate without love
Amen
