Last night we watched “Mississippi burning”, a movie set in the south at the height of racial tension in Mississippi. One of the FBI agents is relating his understanding of racial interactions and tells of a story about his dad hating a black man because the black man had been more successful. He then says of his father, “He was just an old man full of hate not knowing what was killing him.”
Bitterness is ugly, no matter its source. Sometimes life is horribly unfair. Sometimes circumstances are very hard. But if we choose to give into the bitterness or hate, we compound the tragedy. Justified or not, bitterness accomplishes nothing and poisons much.