What does love even mean anyway?
We love our children and our partners. We love coffee and cute shoes. We love our country and our communities. We love it all and also, sometimes people use the word love when it seems like they’ve stopped loving anything at all.
They love their country and despise the people in it.
They love their faith yet condemn those who believe differently.
I’m not sure how that even happens. How does one get to the point where love becomes hate? Because that’s what it feels like to me at this point in our American history. That our love of country has blinded us from the reason our country became the very thing that we love.
America has complicated roots, but one thing its founders wanted was a place where people would be welcomed. Where they could believe freely and act freely and love freely. They worked hard to give us some guidelines to help build and sustain communal living. They worked hard to balance out power, so that the whims of a King would not sentence members of their community to death. We know they were not perfect, and they knew that too. They gave us ways to grow and amend the Constitution as we matured from a baby country into one filled with wisdom. They built upon the basic foundation of communal living: to listen and to learn from one another.
Love is not a clanging cymbal, love is patient, love is kind, etc, etc. 1 Corinthians 13 may be overused, but that is because it speaks to what we all know to be true. True love means to listen with care.
When I read the Bible, I clearly see the message Jesus placed on the faithful during a time of hierarchical corruption. Jesus called us to care for the poor and the vulnerable because when he joined us on earth, people had forgotten what it meant to love.
Christianity’s history is rooted in sitting at table with the outcasts, of caring for the widow, of financing the poor.
So it is utterly confusing to me that people who belong to a church rooted in love can look at our current administration and truly believe that this is what God wants.
Their actions break every promise made. Nothing they are doing is pro-life. Nothing they are doing is bringing us together. Nothing is allowing our communities to flourish.
Their only focus appears to be using their influence to wipe out the support of vulnerable communities that they don’t like. They are intentionally causing chaos when what we need most is a listening ear and a dose of love.
Maybe this chaos was inevitable. That, as humans, we are bound to look to a “powerful” leader in times of fear. Maybe that’s why almost half of the country still lifts their eyes in adoration towards our new president. Maybe they are still afraid. Or maybe it’s because they’ve forgotten that Jesus came to show us that love is not found at the top of the power pyramid, but at the bottom. That true love is found in the trenches of everyday life.
Love is in the hugs we give our children as they leave for school in the morning. Love is in the friendly banter with the grocery store clerk. Love is in the meals we bring to sick friends or the cards we send to grieving family. Love is in the gathering with friends around a pot of soup. Love is the action that makes people’s lives better.
That is the love Jesus modeled for us. Jesus was a person who lifted others up. Nobody left Jesus feeling forgotten or excluded. They felt welcomed and cherished and loved.
It is this kind of love that drives my decisions — on Valentine’s Day and every day.
Happy Love Day, my friends. Loving one another is how we will make our way through this one wild and precious life.
Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash
god forever tries 
Such powerful, true, and loving words, and yet, so simply put. It’s just unbelievab
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