Today at work I ate a turkey and cheese sandwich I had lovingly packed for me. I had included a little note in the lunch bag that said:
Joel,
Do your best today. I know you can.
Love,
Joel
It’s the little things that let me know I care.
It is not, however, the subject of care that I wish to speak on. What I want you to do is to tell me if you have any enemies. I don’t mean animals, inanimate objects, or people groups. I mean individuals that are enemies to you. People you can site by name and call to your hate-filled mind an image of their face. Think hard.
I thought hard. And I have to say, the more I think on the subject, the more absurd the idea of an enemy seems to me. I mean, sure, there are people I do not particularly care for. They annoy me, or they are generally unpleasant to be around, but these people I tend to treat with cautious deference and avoid if at all possible. Dictionary.com defines an enemy as “One who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another; a foe.�
Do you see the inherent action there? An enemy is not just someone you dislike; it’s someone you actively oppose or work to bring about the injury or downfall of. That’s a lot of work to put into someone you don’t like. There is no one person whose dislike of me is so strong that they devote a concentrated amount of time to try to cause my destruction. I don’t have a virtual Gargamel, Cobra Commander, Skeletor, Dr. Claw, or Megatron looking into a viewscreen/crystal ball shaking their fist, epileptic with rage, and shouting “Curse you, Joel! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!�
I mean, do such people actually exist in real life? Well, the answer, in short, is yes, they do. Generally speaking they are obsessive, unbalanced ex-spouses or ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, the stalkers, the angry sons and daughters. And, of course, the common connection between this sort of obsessive, life consuming type of hatred is the fact that, in some twisted way, it’s the perversion of another strong emotion: love.
Any hatred so deep that one will destroy him or herself in order to destroy the other person comes from a deep passion they feel toward the other person. Perhaps they never really knew how to express this passion except in destructive ways, or perhaps its because the other person was not receptive to their love, but whatever the case, when the love could not be outlet through proper channels it’s a small step toward hatred. And the line between friend and enemy is a very thin one.

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