Coal is not the only thing that can burn beneath the surface.  Anger and resentment can burn in our hearts for years before breaking to the surface.

Murder is seldom, if ever, a sudden act performed on the spur of the moment, with nothing preceding.  It is usually the result of resentment burning below the surface till it turns into full-fledged hatred.  Murder occurs when the hatred can no longer be contained.  It erupts in a deadly attempt to wipe out the object of the perpetrator's hatred.

Family feuds, often begun over some minor incident, can continue for generations — even when the incident in question is long forgotten.

Tribal conflict in Africa has often erupted over events that occurred hundreds of years before.  Even if the grievances were tragic, no one gains by the stirring up of wrath and anger in succeeding generations.  Many a child has been killed, and whole villages wiped out, not because of a recent incident, but because of an injury done to someone in the distant past.  Like the coal burning from vein to vein under the surface of the earth, so these hatreds can move from generation to generation.  Much of the unrest and violence so sweeping our modern world, are the result of hatreds spawned centuries, even millennia ago.

What steps are you taking to put out the fires of resentment in your own life, and in the lives of those around you?