(Note; this was dictated to me. I’ve tried to make the transcript as clear as possible. The narrator is a black man about 45 with a large, open face, a short beard and a head full of ropy dreadlocks. He has a strong accent though he’s lived in the U.S. over 25 years. A.B.)

I was not born here. I was born in Jamaica, a long way off. When I was a youth I lived in poverty. When I am just ten years old my father is killed and my mother had no money. We had to leave our land with my three sisters and two brothers, and live in Kingston where I learned the rude way. When I am eighteen I killed a man, I shoot him and dead. We are fighting about a camera I stole from a tourist. He takes my camera and I raise my gun not from here away and shoot him chest, and blood sprung in a stream on me, and I ran away with no camera. The blood stinks and I run all the way to the sea and jump in. Someone says "he’s covered in blood" and I show them my gun and say "shut your mouth." No one catches me; in those days boys die all the time.

I am tired of killing and I leave my mother and brothers and sisters and move to the Cockpit to grow Ganja, the holy Herb. One day I am working on the hillsides and there is a roar in the sky, and the army came. I hid in caves two days and walked for days to the river, and then took a boat to Montego Bay. There I have no money, so I offer to carry things for tourists. "I’ll carry your luggage for a quarter." I buy some ganja from a local boy and break it up and sell it to tourists. I am carrying the luggage of a pretty American girl, and the policeman comes by me and says, "you’re the boy we think sells ganja," and he points his gun at me, but the girl says, "no, he can’t be, he’s been with me for all week," and then the cop let me go. By and by I marry the girl Teresa, who is my wife to today, and I love her very much. Then, we move here, to these mountains.

I tell you this so you know all about me. You see I been bad. You see I killed a man. You see I have been reasoning on this, so you know I speak the truth about these things.

Here is what I want to tell you. There is only one God, Jah, and he loves his children. He doesn’t hate no one. This is what God wants you to do. There is no sin on this earth but to hate your brother. There is always hunger and hardship, but most suffering is from hate. This man kills that man. This man steals. That man is a banker. This is hate.

No more will I hate, or have hate in my heart at all, for I wish God to reside in my heart, and if there is hate, he can not be there, for God is love. God said, "love your brother."

This is what you should do. Don’t hate no Black man. Don’t hate no Mexican. Don’t hate no Queer man. Don’t hate no Russian man. When you don’t hate, and you don’t kill, and you don’t steal, God will come to your heart, and you will live a blessed life. Now, I live a blessed life of peace with Teresa. I spend my time reasoning about God, and the sweetness of His love. You can do this if you are a White man, or a Mexican, or a Queer man or a Russian man.

Don’t make war, or let your president make war; don’t kill, don’t sell guns. All this is hate, and all this makes us sick.

There are other things a man can do to be pure. Eat pure food, no filth. Drink only pure water. Don’t drink rum or any drink. Don’t waste your love on desire for women, but find just one woman and love only her.

But, the main thing is, if you are a cop or a thief or a Christian preacher, to let hate go from your heart, and have only love for everyone. When you love your brother, you don’t steal, or kill him, or lie to him.

If God is in your heart, you will give a hungry man food. You will give a child shelter. You will give an old woman a place at your table. This is because you have God in your heart, and you look at one, you see what God sees: his children, your brothers and sisters. No more can you see "him and I" or "you and I" but everywhere is God, everywhere there is only I and I, unity.

Get hate out of your heart, and death will no longer frighten you, you know you will live forever in the peace of God.

Some day maybe I will meet you. I will greet you with love and tolerance, and you will see that God lives in my heart, and can live in your heart, too.

Thank you,

Thomas