We’re babysitting this little chicken. When she injured her leg, the other chickens started pecking her to death. If another chicken had been injured, she would have done the same to that chicken. She talks to me every time I check on her. She tells me her woes.

This lovely old horse is staying in our pasture, along with three of his companions—although I’d hardly call them that. He has to wear a coat so the others won’t kick and bite him. He is lonely even in a crowd. They hang around long enough to keep him from the water trough. Our dogs like to roll in the manure they leave behind.

Not so different from us. We go after the injured and the weak, the disadvantaged and the marginalized. We blame them for society’s problems. We seek to censure, sequester or eliminate them. We ridicule and berate them around dinner tables on Sundays and shake our heads at the Holocaust on Mondays. And we go after anyone who is for them.

I am still thoroughly convinced that we only love anyone as much as we love the ones we love the least. I don’t care what our political or religious bents are. We’re all somewhere on the spectrum between love and hate. It’s a measure of who we are and not simply what we think of others. As long as we have the smallest trickle of hate running through our veins, we’re part of the problem. And we’ll keep on rolling in the manure that hate leaves behind.

Love has the final move. ~Chris Rice