“Truth and Love wins” was my mantra before the 2020 presidential election. When I woke the next morning after Biden won, I wrote this:

Truth and love wins and I can breathe again!

I feel like I’ve been ship-wrecked at sea for the past four years and finally have reached the shore.

I want to kiss the ground.

And then get up and dance.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, America!!!

I’m praying that will be the outcome of this present election, that truth and love will win again and Kamala Harris will be our next president.

In the meantime, that mantra is what gets me through the day when I would despair against the chaotic events unfolding in such a close election. It’s what boosts my spirits and keeps me on a steady course moving forward.

I’m a firm believer that “the truth will out,” that lies will eventually be exposed and turned against the liar. That “the truth will set you free,” freeing not only the one lied about, but the one who lies as well.

I also firmly believe that “love trumps hate,” that it outlasts hate and will win the day in the end.

It bears out Martin Luther King’s claim that “the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.” Truth wins. Love wins. In the end.

But in the middle of the fray, all is gray and murky.

When we are in the midst of the battle, feeling attacked, maligned; when our safety and future are threatened; when fear and anger, the desire to retaliate, to hate back, to feel a gleeful satisfaction at another’s downfall; when all this takes over our thoughts, we soon realize that we’re caught up in the same tangled web we’ve sworn to fight against.

That’s how lies and hate work, how they turn would-be champions of love into haters themselves. A hater of the haters.

Allowing these feelings go unchallenged perpetuates the very thing we would fight against. It divides the world into us and them, and no matter which side we stand on in that battle, we are all losers.

We have to watch our thoughts and guard our hearts so carefully, if we would not be pulled inside out and find that we are fighting on the side of hate ourselves, against those we fear will destroy our country and end democracy.

We all know this. But it’s hard not to hate the haters. What could we possibly find to love in them?

I found something that helps me with this. I was told: “You don’t have to love them. You just have to love.” You watch your thought and guard your heart so only love enters.

In that frame of mind, feeling compassion for the hater comes naturally. How could we not feel compassion for someone who seems so helpless to fight against a hatred that hurts them far more than the one it’s directed against?

What I’m learning is that none of us are spared of the temptation to hate, or to be greedy or deceitful or dishonest for what we see as a “righteous cause.”

What I’m learning is that the warfare with “evil” as we see it is not really fought on the outside with the other. It’s all on the inside, with ourselves, our own thoughts, our own hearts. That’s where the battle against hate and deceit is fought and won.

These lessons are not new. They are as old as time The wise among us have been telling us forever to “love our enemies,” to “turn the other cheek,” to “be the change we want to see in the world.”

It sounds simplistic and idealistic until we actually try to do it. Then we discover it’s the most difficult war we will ever have to wage, right in our own hearts.

And we also discover what Martin Luther King meant when he said:

“I have decided to stick to love. . . Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

If you haven’t voted yet, please do! Vote for Truth and Love.