Article October 21, 1996 Issue

Hate in your headlines?

Carolyn Ruffin

The headlines used phrases like "ignites passions of the neglected," "impatience ... grows," "worries about growing threat." They were describing national and international situations. But they could have been headlines about my own life.

I was angry about a conflict with someone working on a project with me. While I had been praying to love this individual, my effort was liberally mixed with suspicion, pride, fear. At one point, I looked up and noticed those headlines in a copy of The Christian Science Monitor. Then I started reading one of the stories—about efforts to ward off soccer fan violence. I stopped short at one comment from a security official. Speaking of people who come to soccer matches just to cause trouble, he said, "The real hard core get their kicks by organizing confrontations and watching them take place" (June 7, 1996).

This comment was both an answer to my prayer and a warning. It was suddenly clear that the conflict I faced wasn't the outcome of the relationship. It was imposed. The warning, however, was not against people who might be manipulating me into conflicts, but against being influenced by what the Bible calls the carnal mind, which is "enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7). This feeling of resistance to expressing love was not coming from me or from the other person. It boiled down to a hatred against God, the source of all true affection. I wanted nothing to do with that!

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