Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Here we are again, reading and hearing about senseless killing.

We can blame it on assault weapons, we can blame it on immigration, we can blame it on the government.

The truth of the matter is all these entities can be regulated but the head and heart cannot.

Our behavior is based on what we are being and have been taught. From an instinctive nature, animals will attack because of one of two reasons. They will attack because they are hungry or feel threatened.

Feeling threatened, most animals will only attack to be able to get enough room to escape.

For humans to be the most intelligent species on earth we can be the most illogical. When we speak to these mass shootings and other racial acts of violence. It’s not because we are cannibals and looking to eat people. It stems from people believing they are being threatened.

It’s illogical to think that random people in a local grocery store is a threat to anyone. As much as people may want to blame some of the behaviors on people having mental and emotional concerns, it still comes down to what they are being taught.

If every person who had a mental or emotional concern was killing people, then we could come to that conclusion. However, this is not the case. The root and source of what people are being taught is the misuse of hate.

Humans are created in the image of God; we truly are created to be balanced. We like and we dislike, we love and we hate.

Hate is not a bad thing, it’s the misuse of it that is bad.

Why should we dislike or hate someone because of the color of their skin, their gender preference or national origin? This behavior stems from a deep concept within the head and heart that has been taught and cultivated over time.

We all have preferences.

I don’t know why a large number of people who do not and have never lived in Dallas are Cowboy fans? Not being one is my preference but it gives me no right to hate them or the Cowboys. Again, that type of emotion stems from what has been taught.

What is taught is the misuse of the emotion of hate. Hate does not mean halt.

Just because a person may hate someone does not give them a license to halt their life.

The head and heart cannot be regulated.

It’s going to take learning and cultivation as much as we are all different and will not all agree, it takes all of us to love and live harmoniously.

Rev. Demetrius Moffett is Senior Pastor of Orange Church of God-Embassy of Grace, 1911 North 16th Street in Orange.