" Look Into the Mirror "

LOOK INTO THE MIRROR

Hatred hiding in its lair, dispensing grief and pain…
search your heart ~ does it dwell there, insidious, insane?
Why do we stay in hate's embrace and let it rule our lives,
sorting people race by race and hastening love's demise?
Can one among us give defense why we let hate control...
cloaked in veils of false pretense, to take so great a toll?
Why nurture we this evil force, destructive from the start,
its venom through our souls to course and feed upon our hearts?

Those who hate themselves fall prey to what their victims face...
malice sent another's way reclaims its own birthplace.
Bearing when it does return the tears and pain it wrought
upon the ones who feel its burn, searing and white hot...
to torment and condemn the soul that spawned its very life ~
reducing it to less than whole and doomed to pay the price
exacted when we lay aside our duty to be true
unto ourselves to let love guide in all we say and do.

By causing others tears and pain, we are ourselves diminished…
and looking back, find nothing gained when hate-filled lives are finished.
For those who feel they can't embrace the concept of a God ~
are we still not ourselves disgraced if we on others trod?
If life goes not beyond this earth and here is where it ends,
is man not from his hour of birth compelled to make amends?
And if you do embrace the One who's called our God on High,
did He not give His only Son that hate at last might die?

Even if Christ isn't seen as risen from the tomb,
God Himself our malice deems cause for the spirit's doom.
Did not our Lord in Heaven above denounce hate and condemn
the souls of those who find no love to offer fellow men?
For every tear we cause a foe ~ for all the pain we give...
so, too, will we reap what we sow as long as we may live.
Is this then mankind's destiny ~ doomed for evermore?
To perish in a raging sea where waves of loathing roar?

A sea of blood drawn by swords honed razor sharp with hate?
A mindless, blind, and lethal force permitting no escape?
How much closer will hate lure us, captive in its spell,
toward the mouth of the abyss ~ the very gates of hell?
We can break free ~ it's not too late ~ to turn our backs at last,
on all the injury and hate that we've allowed to pass
between us and the ones for whom our hearts no love could find...
to step back from the brink of doom ~ and save ourselves, in kind.

Stand before the mirror of your conscience and your mind ~
search there for the light of love; in it forgiveness find ~
for wrongs perceived, transgressions borne, injustices that scarred...
leaving you in pain and torn; the beauty in you marred.
With forgiveness comes sweet peace ~ the cycle breaks at last…
reborn, made clean, from hell released ~ and hatred's tempest passed..
leaving in it's tortuous wake respite, joy, and calm ~
replaced with love that overtakes all past and future wrongs.

Consider what the world could be if man abandoned fear
of from defenses breaking free and gazing in that mirror.
acknowleging what it reflects ~ enabling us to love…
forever hatred to reject and malice rise above.
It starts with you and me, my friend ~ for we, in turn, can show
our brethren how to make hate end and find the peace we know.
Together we can rise above; become as meant to be;
loving others, being loved ~ from hatred's grip set free.

Look into the mirror now as side by side we stand…
accept apology avowed and take my offered hand.
Let us walk together on, out of loathing's night;
toward compassion's radiant dawn and friendship's healing light.
In earthly life sweet peace must be our first and utmost goal,
for those who hate shall never see salvation of the soul.
The heights to which the spirit soars are limitless and vast...
when to his heart man love restores, his bonds are loosed at last.