When did the word “love”
become a trigger?
And why did it become that
For me?
It happened,
not for the first time,
nor, I suspect,
for the last.
This undeserved response
to a word to warm
and comfort
and hope for.
a word, aspirational,
if you will.
I know the answer.
In this topsy-turvy world
of time-trapped Purim,
where mistruths abound;
where truths don’t always agree,
the call to love
is being shaken loose
as yet another blanket
to drape over a field of weapons
and every manner of wicked abuse,
trying to hide them from view.
“I am sorry,”
I wrote in a lesson on conflict resolution
“I cannot love a Jihadist.
It is simply
Too much to ask.”
For now,
for sure,
please,
with a smile,
do not ask me
to love
that neighbor.
