“I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” is one of my favorite Christmas carols. It was originally a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This poem was written during the Civil War in America. This Christmas carol came to mind recently as I was thinking about the subject of hate.

Recently my granddaughter told me she put her mother in time out. The reason mom got put in time out was because she said she hated ants. I really couldn’t argue with hating ants until my 4-year-old granddaughter explained further. She proceeded to tell me that you should not hate anything. Hate was a bad word, and you should never use it. This is what her mom and dad told her. Mom gladly sat in the time out. It was another teachable moment for my granddaughter.

Where does hate come from? There is no hate in my 4-year-old granddaughter. There is no hate in my 1-year-old grandson. They have friends of many different nationalities and they do not see the color of their skin. When will all that change?

I so admire the parents of my grandchildren for teaching their children right from wrong. I so admire their teaching their children to not hate.

We live in a world where people dying violently in another new story that we read and toss away. We have become conditioned to violence. There are shootings and killings right here in our state and in our cities and we accept it and go about our daily life. We are conditioned to all the killings and violence we see on television. Don’t we just love “CSI” and “Law and Order”? Soon our children will love those programs as they watch with us.

We live in a world where violent movies are box office hits. We live in a world where online comments can show hate by merely a touch of a keyboard. We live in a world where hate crimes are committed every day, and we read the news and accept it as normal.

I had not thought about the word hate in a long time. Putting someone in time out for the word hate? We put kids in time out for hitting their brothers and sisters and using foul language or sassing their parents. We put them in time out to learn right from wrong. I now agree that hate should be part of that process.

When will these children learn to hate? What would happen if at a very early age we taught our children that hate was a bad word and modeled the behavior that would show them that hate is a bad word. These children learn hate from us. These children learn hate from the news stories, the TV shows and the behavior that we model to them.

It is the Christmas season. It is supposed to be a time of peace and love. The Christmas season is a time when people model that peace and love. For a time during the year we give more, we show people kindness and we forget to be cruel. We bask in the Christmas season with all the trimmings and good will. Hopefully we remember the true reason for the season.

What happens when it is all over? Will we continue to put ourselves and our children in time out for using the word hate? Or will hate continue to be another one of those things that we take for granted in our world? We will read the newspaper, shake our heads at the violence and go on with our day.

I challenge all of you and myself to teach your children and grandchildren that hate is a bad word. If you feel hate, put yourself in time out for awhile and think about the world and what a better place it would be if we all taught our children and grandchildren that hate is a bad word. Thank you, Maggie, for teaching grandma not to hate.

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.