One of the things I like about being Christian is the reminder that we are called to love. (Not saying that鈥檚 exclusive to Christianity, just that I like it about Christianity.)
Our teacher once said we are called to put love at the centre of our heart, mind, body and soul. To do so in all we do, and to do so in loving our neighbours as ourselves. Implicit in that is the call to love ourselves, to know ourselves to be beloved, no matter what.
One of the things that discomforts me about being Christian is the reminder that we are called to love.
You see, I am not always one of the loving. Nor am I always ready to acknowledge that the unloving are as beloved to the love that calls us as, well as you are, or s/he is.
I have no trouble with the call to love you. You are a beautiful, beloved creation of love. I have no trouble with the call to love you.
I have no trouble with the call to love that person, or those people, they are creations of love, beloved to love and, therefore, to me. I have no trouble with the call to love them.
I am troubled, however, by the call to love those who bring hatred down upon others. I am troubled by my deep antipathy to hatred, by my desire to banish its champions.
In strident words, in vehement gestures, in impassioned calls to arms I hear echoes of shouts in stadiums and boots on cobblestones. In the rhetoric of fear and vilification I read headlines thick with assassination, massacre, violence and despair. My deepest fears stir me up and have their way with me. I look for someone to blame, someone to overthrow.
Ironically, in my response to hatred, I become one with them. How can I love that? How can I not?
Martin Luther King Jr., a man well experienced in being hatred鈥檚 target once said:
鈥淒arkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.鈥�
I believe that love bears us, nurtures us, calls us, holds us, and knows us as beloved. No matter what we think of ourselves. Love impels us and compels us, love insists we recognize ourselves to be a part of something vast, something wonderful and something ultimately good.
There are days when seeing ourselves as love sees us is a difficult if not near impossible task. There are days when seeing others as love sees them is a difficult and nearly impossible task.
Faith is that which sustains us in the darkness, carrying us through hate and into love.
Love鈥檚 call to us, whatever our faith or reason for knowing听 our ways can change, is to bring light and love to a world that sometimes seems lost in hatred and fear.
If there are those who are not ready to believe in love as you bring it, rest easy, there are those who will. Our teacher told us to make the most of the opportunities that wait in fertile ground. Some ground will be more fertile for some messengers than others.
Above all else, be ready for the messengers on their way to you.
Be fertile ground for love.
Keith Simmonds听is听a diaconal minister, serves at Duncan United Church, and as President of the BC Conference of the United Church of sa国际传媒. Blogging at 听he听can also be found at听听Views expressed here are his own, and not necessarily those of the church.听
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