The Weapons of Love
I recently parked my car in New York and came back to find a leaflet jammed into my door handle. I looked down the street; every car had been hit. I saw a picture of the pope and figured it was just an overeager Catholic blanketing the neighborhood with tracts. Opening it, I found otherwise. Badly photo-shopped images of the pontiff with dark underworld figures, ugly references to Jews, and a spree of sinister plots that would make Dan Brown blush.
I sat there at the wheel, looking down the row of cars all sprouted with hate. What, I wondered, would motivate someone to actually join this mission, lug around cases of this agitprop, and do the tedious work of inserting it in door handle after door handle, all night long? Sadly, the answer came rather quickly. It’s the spirit of the age. Everyone wants to know who you hate. It’s not good enough to be right, someone else has to be hideously wrong. Our stars—whatever side we’re on—are the ones who can “take down” the other guy. We troll and counter-troll, we ridicule, we meme and GIF. Because what counts right now is not holding to the good but stamping out the evil, and if the supply of evil runs low we must simply make some more. Immature religious and political leaders need lots of the stuff. They are very deft at helping us to project our own darkness onto the frightful “other”—and then rallying the warriors to kill the beast.
It’s not that we should shrink from the fight. Jesus didn’t. But we must be wearing “the armor of light” (Romans 13:12), and we must be bearing the weapons of love. That means we have to be deeply self-aware, allowing the Spirit to search our hearts and reveal those places where we need conversion. It means we have to know what we’re for, what we love. Hatred and contempt come so easily, love so hard.
What do you love? That is not primarily a question about your feelings. It asks what matters ultimately in your life, and what sacrifices you are prepared to make for the people and the communities you love. That’s demanding, because the way of love does not scapegoat and destroy, it doesn’t seek to solve the problem by blaming somebody, and then attacking them. On the contrary, the way of love begins by asking, What needs to change in me?
“Everyone thinks of changing the world,” wrote Tolstoy, “but no one thinks of changing himself.” No one, that is, except the one who seeks to love.
Very much appreciate this morning’s post. In this era of overt ‘otherism’ … conditioning ourselves to be open and to ‘love first’ is an especially challenging obstacle course. Thanks for encouraging our resolve to look past the litter.
I think we’re all susceptible to this—it’s such an innate response—to distrust anyone not like us. So, all we can do is try to uncover even a bit of our ego. I call that a big win.
Mean(as in intend) good things for others and sacrifice to bring them about – it’s my shorthand definition of this kind of love. Here’s to keeping an eye on the inner life rather than offering our unsuspecting automobile neighbors words of hate. Thanks, David!
Yep—intend good for others, and the sacrifice is on ME.
This is great, David. We need this so much. The focus–you close with a Tolstoy quote–is a hallmark of the 12-step movement. The steps focus on what I’ve done to harm others (not what others have done to harm me) and on what I can do to improve my moral life. When thinking of improvements I can think of in THEIR life, I am trained to pray: “Bless them. Change me.”
Thanks, David. Every post is a positive, but some are gems. This is a gem.
This is great—the wisdom of the 12 Steps is just unending—bless them, change me.
I don’t know who said it, but it’s true that the Twelve Step program was the greatest spiritual development of the last century.
A simple word such as “sprout” engaged me. Thank you for writing on so many planes.
Sometimes just a word, yes. Thank you.
Thank you David = many times your writings make my heart sing and this one hit the mark. Love is the only way. Amen
Thanks for reading—and commenting too!