Browsing tag: love

  • Love Your Enemies

    Love your enemies (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6: 27-35)

    (Rule of Saint Benedict 4. 31)

    Loving your enemies sounds like a nice idea until you actually have enemies yourself.

    When someone asked Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” he responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which turns the question on its head. We are to be neighbors even to inveterate cultural enemies. But no one ever asked Jesus, “who is my enemy?” This, it seems, we are left to figure out.

    An enemy is not merely someone with whom you disagree. You can disagree passionately with friends on all sorts of topics, as long as you have something more important in common.

    Nor is an enemy an opponent in a game. An opponent recognizes the same boundaries you do and does not harm you in real life.

    An enemy is not even necessarily someone with whom you are in conflict. Sometimes the angry person turns out not to be a beast. If you give the benefit of the doubt, engage, and communicate what’s going on from your perspective, sometimes you find that the enemy is a neighbor after all.

    An enemy, in brief, is someone who acts deliberately on the intent to harm you. After you’ve attempted to resolve a conflict peacefully, the person who stabs you in the back can fairly be called an enemy.

    And this is the person we’re called to love.

    A Christian concept of love is essentially voluntary. We know that God is love. But we also know that God is not our slave. So, neither are we enslaved to those we love. Love ends where coercion begins.

    Therefore, if you are going to love anyone, first you must be free. More to the point: you must be free from the enemy in question. If your enemy is more powerful than you are, escape is the first order of business. Extricate yourself, and then work on making new friends, because even evil people tend to avoid attacking someone who has relationships with others.

    If you are, then, free to love, the question becomes, what is love?

    We know that “the Lord disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12:6; Proverbs 3: 12). Therefore a Christian concept of love includes setting boundaries and enforcing standards. Love sets aside the self-interest of the moment for the good of the other person. But the good of the other person is not always what that person demands. When someone wants something that is not good, you say no, for love’s sake.

    The most terrible enemies are the ones you always loved, and who, you thought, also loved you. Those are the ones who break your heart. There’s nothing quite like the distress of loving the antagonist who once was dear. The world roils with enemies who are exes.

    Whether the situation is tragic or merely wearisome, loving any sort of enemy requires a combination of efforts. First, you must finesse your way out of range of whatever harm your enemy might inflict. Further, you must refrain from inflicting whatever revenge is within reach. Ultimately, you must make the extra effort to be the sort of person your enemy is not.

    Your enemy is enraged, but you must be respectful. Your enemy is vindictive, but you must be peacable. Your enemy is selfish, but you must be generous. Your enemy is false, but you must be true.

    Nothing anyone can say will ever make this easy, but the Holy Spirit can make it possible.

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  • Bear Injuries Patiently

     

    Bearing injuries patiently is not a sign of weakness.  It’s a sign of goodness.  Only the strong bear up.  Only the good restrain themselves when evil beckons, because evil is not their master.

    This isn’t about defending yourself in the moment of attack.  You have the right to self-defense.  This is about the aftermath: now what?

    Weak people fall apart and lash out at everyone around them as they disintegrate.  For a brief moment, they enjoy an experience of power: the power to destroy.  There’s something appealing about power, even when you know it’s fleeting, even when you know it’s hateful.  The Church calls this appeal the glamor of evil.  As Christians, we reject it, along with Satan and all his works.

    Strong people hold themselves together, hold onto what they know is good and hold out for what they know is right.  Sometimes they hang on by their fingernails.  As Christians, this is the character we aspire to, and God knows it’s hard.  Sometimes the path leads straight up the face of a cliff.

    You can be on the right path and still fall and get hurt.  Getting hurt doesn’t mean that God is against you.  It means that there’s an inherent risk to living at all.  You were thrust into existence without being consulted.  But now that you’re here, you’re free to venture your all for the good.  The promise of Christ is that ultimately your venture will pay off.  Death is not the end.

    People who have only this world to live for figure that nothing they do matters.  But the Christian message is that everything you do matters, even the tiny things.  Even a small creature can live in harmony with its Maker.  He is always at work everywhere for good, and he invites you to participate in that work, wherever you are, whoever you are.

    You’re free to reject his offer.  You can rage against your Creator.  He allowed evil into this world, and now you can increase the sum of evil.

    But know that if you choose for what is right and true and good, God is on your side, even when everything else in the universe seems to be against you.  And he promises that the pain will last only as long as this life.  You will emerge into peace for eternity.

    That leaves now, and everything we have to face in this moment in time.  Sometimes we can’t understand why God does what he does.  Why does he hurt us?  Why make us stay in our place in a corner with a cone around our necks?  We didn’t do anything wrong.  

    Heave a big sigh and wait: maybe something good will come along next.

    Don’t fret.  Don’t chew on your hurt and make it worse.  Save your energy for the good you can do.  If the path before you is clear, and if you have the strength, get up every day and keep going.  Be patient.  Bear up.  There’s no quick fix to any complex problem, and you will encounter many problems along the way.

    When you’ve done everything you can do, then stand firm and wait for God himself to act on your behalf.  If you can’t stand up anymore, sit down.  If even sitting is too much, lie still and be who you are where you are.  There’s a time to let people who love you take care of you.  You’re not alone in this.  Fix sad eyes on your Maker.  Remain alert to his call.

    An injury can happen in an instant.  The healing takes a long, long time.  It saps all the strength you’ve got.

    Healing is your job now.  We want you back.

     

    Do not repay one bad turn with another 1 Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9.  Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently.  (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 29-30)

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  • Refrain From Adultery

    Adultery–who does it with whom, when, where and with what consequences–is an endlessly fascinating topic for all societies, and in the literatures of all languages.  Adultery is interesting.  Same old same old is boring.  Bored people commit adultery.

    You may not think of yourself as bored.  You may think of yourself as interesting but unappreciated.  Never mind.  You still don’t have to turn into the sort of person who commits adultery just for the thrill of it.  Cultivate variety in your life–in other areas.  Take on interesting challenges.  Set ambitious goals.  Find something other than sex that motivates you.  Find something other than yourself that holds your attention.

    But what if you’re really tempted?  What if your marriage has degenerated to the point where there’s nothing much left: no camaraderie, no communication, no sex.  What if you don’t even see your spouse, most of the time?  And then you meet someone attractive: someone you enjoy looking at, or talking to, or both.

    Do nothing.  Adultery is not a sin that you’re going to commit inadvertently.  No doubt someone, somewhere has committed adultery by mistake, distracted by something else.  But for most people, this particular transgression involves planning, or at least a series of conscious actions.  There needs to be communication, maneuvering, overcoming of obstacles.  That’s why it’s interesting.  If it were just the pull of inertia, you might as well go home to your spouse and save yourself the part where your kids cry themselves to sleep every night.

    If, like everyone else who has ever had a job, you meet someone attractive at work, the do-nothing rule will ensure that no one ever knows how you feel, because most people’s jobs do not pay them to express their feelings about their coworkers.

    What if you’re required to attend one of those seminars where total strangers goad people into sharing their impressions of each other?

    If you’re clever enough to have that sort of job, you’re clever enough to think of something noncommittal to say.

    What if it’s not a co-worker, but someone you interact with socially: the spouse of a friend; the parent of your child’s friend; someone from long before you were ever married?  The possibilities are endless, and there’s no question that some situations are poignant.  You may be attracted to someone whom you have every reason to respect and like, whom you cannot avoid interacting with, and whom you genuinely care about.  Still, if you do nothing, you won’t commit adultery.

    The do-nothing rule doesn’t mean you aren’t working hard.  To refrain from the action that you could take is the spiritual equivalent of isometric muscular contractions.  Nothing moves, and no one sees anything happening, but it’s very hard to sustain over time.  This is why you need an active outlet for your frustrations: because in tense situations, doing nothing becomes unbearable.

    What if it’s not about a relationship at all?  It’s just sex.  Your spouse can’t keep up with you; is absent, ill, or somewhere else along the spectrum from unwilling to repulsive.

    It’s still adultery.  It’s not a massage.

    What if you never touch another human body?  What if it’s virtual?  What if it’s a really old porn video and everyone in it is dead already?

    Jesus suggests chopping off your right hand (Matthew 5:29-30).  If you’re left-handed, you might have to go for the other side.  But before you try mutilation, you might try improving your relationship with your spouse.  Improving your relationship may not mean improving your spouse.  It may mean improving something else in your life to make your relationship more enjoyable.

    And you must pray:  “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13).  Your situation no matter how miserable is not tragic, because God is faithful and will answer prayers.  More specifically, he answers the prayers of people who do the right thing (James 5:16). So do clamor to God to get you out of the situation you’re in and into a better one.  Maybe you need a seismic shift.  God can do seismic shifts.  Maybe you need a new job, a new town, a miracle–love?

    Don’t be surprised that you feel devoid of love.  Everyone gets there.  Not if, but when you’re out of love, turn to God, the source of love, and ask him to give you love for your spouse.  Of course, you have to find within yourself at least a faint wish to love your spouse.  You may need to ask for that first.

    It may not feel like the excitement you want.  It may feel, instead, like the tide imperceptibly flowing in and lifting your beached boat off the sandbar.

    (Rule of St. Benedict 4.4)

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