Karma is Karma

Warning: Today is not going to be an uplifting entry. It is just “one of those days” as they say, whoever the infamous “they” are. That being said, and without further adieu, I give you today’s column for those few people who read the convent’s column. I daresay that there are a lot more people who read the actual articles I write for the podcast where I am a staff writer, but one never knows…

Today started out in the usual way with the exception that the 5:00 am “doglarm” did not go off. The reason for that is, mother superior’s dog, who always asks me to walk him at 5:00 am, rather than his owner, was that he was shut in with his owner for the night. Sister Frances went the “second mile” as the good book says, helping me get ready and out the door. She dropped me off at the “tunnel of death” (what I call the subway where we life – that being the same subway that has caught fire twice while I was in it, once while I was riding in it, been stuck on the tracks more times than I can count and now runs so slow, I could probably jog to work and beat it there).

Once I was done praying (for riding the subway always seems to merit much prayer) I fired up the IPOD and Stevie Wonder. Stevie’s songs always put me in a wonderful mood (pun intended) and by the time I got to work I was in a great mood – but it all went down hill from there.

It is hard to keep a good mood when you work somewhere where some of your co-workers wont’ ride an elevator with you, and others look at you as if you are Satan incarnate and somehow have no right to co-exist on the same planet with them. Sad to say they have been forced to put up with my “Company” in the same company for more than 20 years now.

Twenty LONG years….

Being the resident nun isn’t what has caused all the hate (just some of it), being the resident “ex-hermaphrodite” is the main cause, but you can never tell exactly what makes people get their HATE ON. There is an old expression that says, “It is hard to remember that your original intent was to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.” One might easily change that to say “up to your ass in hate.”

But it is not always directed at me, even if, as a project manager, I am often the displaced target of the hate…

…like the woman who called my office to tell me that her neighbors are “Russian spies” and that the satellite dish (that was actually for television) on the roof was a telephone to “Mother Russia.” In the end I was forced to refer her to the FBI because my office doesn’t handle matters of espionage.

…like the woman who called my office to tell me that she wanted the owner of her property to build a fence between her apartment complex and the adjoining field so the geese couldn’t get into the complex (hello? Geese having WINGS and can FLY)

…like the woman who called my office to tell me that her ex-husband had her walls “bugged” (no I she didn’t mean the eight legged variety – she meant the electronic kind).

…like the woman who called me to tell me that her neighbors always leave their front door open and wanted me to force them to close their front door.

But the opportunities for avenues to vent one’s hate are many and varied in today’s world. We live in an age of instant media and virtual worlds. The internet and electronic media have created a global village, as Marshal Mcluhan called it. But the advent of MMO’s (Massively Multiplayer Online games) that create virtual world have created opportunities to hate other people that are in other cities, states and even countries. We live in a world where you have the opportunity to ruin someone’s day you may have never met and will never meet face to face.

We even, God help us all, live in a world with “push button warfare.” A button is pushed, a missile is launched, and entire cities disappear. But “twas not always so.”

693 years go, in 1314, Robert the Bruce, first High King of Scotland, won the Battle of Bannockburn, taking up the uprising begun by William Wallace (about whom the movie Braveheart was made) and ultimately Scotlands freedom – for awhile. Back then there was no push button warfare. The hatred that caused one man to take the life of another was face to face – they watched the life flow out of the eyes of the person they had just killed.

And so mankind invents new an interesting ways in which to heap hatred upon their fellow man.

But here is the ultimate lesson…

Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, there is an expression that says “Karma is Karma” in other words, what goes around comes around. That hatred you heap on other people, in whatever measure you give them, will be given right back to you in the long run.

Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But EVENTUALLY it will all come around. And when it does? WHEN IT DOES IT IS GOING TO BE A DOOZY. A real “hate bomb”.

There is a reason that God taught us all to love those who hate us, as hard as it is to do. And believe me, I still have a hard time loving someone who hates me so much they won’t even ride and elevator with me, or hurls filthy epithets at me all because of how I was born.

Why not hate them back?

Well if nothing else, for our own self preservation (see above statement about hate bombs).

In the mean time I am seriously considering donating my brain to science, but I don’t think I will wait to die first.