This command is a difficult one to follow. It seems too big of a request. How can I love everyone? I need to break this down in order to comprehend what I am being asked to do. I know there are people I like and get along with, who are easy to love but how do I love those I dislike or that I have decided to not keep in my life? Those I have never met? That is when my friend Beth gave me a wonderful answer to my earlier question. She said Jesus asked us to love one another not to like one another. “Loving people” she said, “is easier than liking them”. In some ways you really need to get to know a person, their personality to decide if you like them but you can love them, because they are a person who deserves to be loved. I understood what she was saying but wanted to see if I could find anything written on this. I found this interesting article online and I just want to quote one paragraph here but you can read the rest of the authors thoughts here
“I once thought that to care for everyone meant appreciating all personalities and treating everyone equally. I first discovered how impossible and unnecessary it was to treat everyone equally. Perhaps that is when it occurred to me that I did not need to be equally fond of everyone to love them. That removed the feelings of guilt I had when I found that I did not like someone. For me, there was always a reason to dislike a person though. After the revelation, I experienced love for others when I cared about the general welfare of others, tried to understand them and bore no ill-will towards them. In my view, liking people arose through personality preferences and people, even if similar, cannot be exactly alike. This has implications for how you deal with people. I think that if you use "love" and "like" interchangeably, find that you hate many people. Boldly, I would suggest that folks who are so inclined would not attempt to minimise their levels of discrimination. It is perhaps possible to love people at different levels. Arguably, there is no general stipulation that we must love everyone equally. It is because of this that we get the concepts confused.”
Do you think it is easier to love or to like someone?
Do we innately want to love and care for one another as in this quote from Mencius cs 372-289 The Book of Mencius:
The Last Word
All men have a mind which cannot bear to see the sufferings of others. If men suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they will experience a feeling of alarm and distress. Let them have their complete development, and they will suffice to love and protect all within the four seas.
quoted from Pathways to Peace: Interreligious Readings and Reflections, A. Jean Lesher, ed.
If this is true then it makes me wonder about the homeless man who stopped a mugging and then was left for dead on the sidewalk. Check out the video and article .Why did all those people just walk by and not help? Why did the one person take a picture but did not help? What does this say about us?
Why should we listen to this command by Jesus, why should we follow him and love one another as he has loved us? If you are curious I invite you to listen to this video blogger Dan Brown .
Loving one another as Jesus loves us begins one person at a time and it can be simple.
Join us Thursday at 7PM on Skype for a live conversation. Just log on to skype.com and call in to bythewaycommunity, we will be there form 7PM EST until 8PM, join in anytime, all are welcome.
Love
Heidi
No comments:
Post a Comment