On Love

John 15:12

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

How much better the world would be if only we could abide by this command.  I must admit that it is not that easy.  Are we capable of the love that God is referring to in this verse, especially that we are reminded of  another  verse in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.”  What are we willing to give or do to prove our love for the other: our own families, neighbors, our colleagues at school, and work,  let alone our enemies, who are out to get us in one way or another, and will that be possible?

 

However, when we reflect on the qualities of love as listed in 1Corinthians 13:4-7, we begin to realize that with love one can overcome so many problems and conflicts, whether on the level of the family, community,  the country, and even on a larger scale of regional and global conflicts.  “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered.  It keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  It seems to me that in a nutshell,  love is actually blinding.  I thought those beautiful definitions of love should help us appreciate the meaning of love, and provide us with  the guidelines  to abide by that command:  Love each other as I have loved you.    An unconditional love.  That is why when we experience the power of love,  we realize that it is indeed a blessing to be able to love and be loved.

 

I would like to share with you a true story of a friend of mine,   who was a very wise and pious Christian woman.  And I say was, because she is not with us any more.   Like many Palestinians, she and her family had been evicted from their home in West Jerusalem in April 1948, and ended up living in Amman, Jordan.   Shortly after that trauma, her husband passed away and eventually her two sons married to two sisters were living with her.  She was such an organized woman, but she was having a hard time coping with all the disorder and chaos brought about by her daughters-in law.  Her only outlet was to share her dilemma with her daughter who was already married before 1948, and was living abroad.  You cannot imagine how the advice of her daughter “to love them as if they were her own daughters” worked like magic.  By her own words she told me:  By loving them my whole life changed and I was relaxed and stopped seeing any of the chaos that bothered me so much. Indeed love is blinding.  

 

As we ponder on the qualities of love,  it becomes  very clear that the opposite of those qualities are actually the main reasons for all the conflicts that we face in our daily life.  When you are impatient, you are not willing to listen to somebody else’s point of view.  When you are not kind, you are bound to hurt somebody.  When you envy somebody for what he or she has gained or accomplished you are already hurting somebody’s feeling instead of sharing the joy of the accomplishment.  When you are rude and easily angered you are bound to create enemies due to your attitude, and nobody would be interested in even listening to you.  Indeed love keeps no record of wrongs.  When you are trying to reconcile with a friend you simply shut the record with an apology,  and let bygones be bygones, otherwise there will never be any reconciliation.   I remember when we were kids and we would have a fight or hurt each other at home or school, during a game or discussion,  which was a  normal feature of growing up,  it was always compulsory  that our parents or teachers would make us say “sorry”  before going on with the day.  It was the magic word that clarified any misunderstanding or any hurt feelings.  Sometimes there was a  kiss along with the “sorry.”  And life went on.

 

Many years later,  I observed the principal of Rawdat El-Zuhur School in East Jerusalem, where I volunteered for many years as she dealt with conflicts.  She would never allow a child to go home before  a good handshake or a hug with one of his or her  peers if  they had a big row in school.  Also small misunderstandings between teachers would be solved before the end of the day.    A policy that proved very helpful in maintaining  an atmosphere of love, peace, and dignity for all.  Be they staff or students. I often wonder what if churches, organizations and even countries would  follow such a policy?  Would we not be spared so many conflicts?  So many people around the globe  have been hurt due to oppressive regimes in their own churches, institutions, and governments.  While many more  have suffered due to imposed conflicts upon them, like occupation, colonization  and deprivation of their rights, and nobody even recognized the root cause of their suffering, let alone offer an apology. 

 

How could the world unite under the slogan of love, to overcome all the suffering that we watch daily on our TV screens?  Or am I being too naïve to even start hoping that through love we shall overcome, while vested interests and material gains for the powerful continue to be priority.  However if all good people who believe in the power of love and truth, can  join forces in the right direction, we can continue to  hope that we shall overcome.     With the sophisticated media, we have no reason anymore to justify our ignorance about what is happening around the globe,  and how it is affecting  everybody;  we have all become so interconnected.   I think the following words of Dr. Martin Luther King are  so pertinent regarding this issue:

 

“We are tied together in a single garment of destiny,

We are caught in a network of mutuality,

 And I can never be who I ought to be

 Until you are who you ought to be.”

 

So I hope that the love that preserves,  is also able to preserve our Globe and spare it and spare its inhabitants further suffering that humans are imposing on each other as well as on the environment that we are living in.

 

Go with love and peace.