Gentry: It's up to us to stop the hatred

As we sit and wait for what many seem to think will be inevitable riots after the Ferguson grand jury decision is announced ...

As we hear about attacks by people of one belief on people of another belief all over the world ...

As I read the latest news reports on violence we perpetrate against each other daily ...

I'm reminded of a story Granddaddy told me of something that happened to him. It's one of the stories he also shared with a group of middle school students doing a project in Person County, North Carolina, in which they interviewed older residents of the county about what it was like for them growing up.

The students and their adviser asked Granddaddy what the happiest time in his life was and this was his answer, written here in Granddaddy's words as it appears in the collection of interviews:

"I reckon the happiest time I can say, was when I went to prayer meeting one night and I have always felt real good from it. I went to prayer meeting one night and Preacher Bowman, he was our preacher at that time, he said, 'Well, I'm goin' do something tonight that I haven't done in a long time. I don't think I've ever done it but once. I'm going to do it the second time tonight.' ...

"Everybody was wondering what was gonna happen. He said, 'Well, I'm gonna call on Brother Arthur Brandon [my granddad] to conduct prayer meeting tonight.' ... I'd never thought about it. Not one thing. And my wife said, 'You ain't going up there, are you?' I said, 'Yeah, I'm going up there.' She said, 'What you gonna say?' I said, 'I don't know. I'm going.'

"And so I went on up there. And to show people that the Lord do speak to you ... when I was going on up from where I was sitting at to the front to conduct the prayer meeting, look like the Lord told me, He said, 'Now you go up there, when you get up there ... I'll give you two words to speak on.' That was 'come' and 'go.' So when I got up there, I told 'em that that's what the good Lord had done to me, spoke to me when I was coming up there.

"And I says, 'God has always called us to come unto Him, "come unto Me." After we come unto God, then He tells us to go out ... go out and tell somebody else what you've learnt and what you done.'

"And I told 'em then, I said, 'That's all I got to say ... that's what the good Lord gave me to say.' The preacher spoke when he got up and said he 'clare he didn't think he had ever heard such a sermon in two words. I was real happy about that. And I was happier then than I've ever been ...

Such a simple message – a story that ultimately says it rests upon each one of us to somehow go out upon the world and make a difference.

It's up to those of us who have learned to respect others and their beliefs, learned how to show that respect and learned how to live that way – it's up to us to now go out and tell someone else they can do it as well.

There's no place for the kind of hatred that seems to be growing in our world. It's up to us to stop it.

Share in the Only in Delaware conversation 24/7 on delawareonline. Contact Jeffrey Gentry at jgentry@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffreygentry