1 John 4:8 is succinct: "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

I remember, when I was in secondary school, one set book we had to read was Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This book was all about you need to know about love and hate. Every scene after another involved interchange of love and hate. You have to read Romeo and Juliet to know what I am talking about.

Hate and love? What have you done to your sick neighbour? He’s sick, yes, but do you know that the same condition he or she is in can strike you too any moment?

Hatred is said to be among the seven major sins. Hatred made the two true lovers in the book, Romeo and Juliet, to kill each other. The world cannot just live with hatred.

I was talking to my friend the other day. He is called Fredrick Masengesho. Fred, as I call him, is a deeply pious person. I go to his house and we discuss the Bible. That’s one thing I like with Fred. I always get him clutching to his Bible because he believes.

With so much deep retrospection, Fred was telling me that all this world misses is love. Then I asked him, "Do we hate? He said, yes, we hate. "You live in a house. You could be having money in your pocket, but you don’t go and ask your neighbour whether they had anything to eat last night.” he said. I felt humbled. 

I had never asked myself that kind of question. When I woke up in the morning the following day, Fred’s words rankled up my mind. I went to my neighbour to find out how the family was faring. His child just needed milk.

For some people out there, who are reading this, milk is just a packet you buy from a supermarket. Then for some people, milk is something they have to fight with cow’s udders just to get it. Then for most of us, we know that milk makes our breakfast table. Yet for a child, milk can make a lifetime connection. Just ask mothers.

Then how does milk connect with the story of love? I went out in the morning to talk to my pastor. Of cause I made sure that I leveled with a neighbour’s child who needed just a packet of milk. I have been living with them and sometimes I hate them. Why? Things have just been mysteriously disappearing from my house and I know who have been responsible.

My pastor told me one thing. And he quoted from the bible. "Love thy neighbour, the Bible says so.”

But how can I love my neighbour when they hate me, they steal from me? He opened his Bible and quoted me this verse from John 12:25: "Greater love has no one than this; that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Then ask yourself as a deeply religious person reading this. Have you ever laid down your life for a friend? How much did you give a suffering friend yesterday? How much milk did you buy for a neighbour’s suffering child who just needed a packet of it? Do you hate?

"Yes, we hate. That’s why we can throw away food when someone needed it. In this world, we don’t care for each other,” my pastor, James Kalinda told me.

But he again told me that hatred will never last for long. "Those who hate are under the microscopic view of the Lord. Abel killed his brother Cain. And that was the end of his life as we know from the Bible. People know more about Cain than Abel. Those who hate will be judged justly.”

I went back to the story of Romeo and Juliet and said in myself that hatred has no place in the world. We simply have to love.