Inherent Weakness and Meaningless Repetition

Last week I had the opportunity to reflect on a need to move toward a hermeneutic of love, to take on an interpretive lens that recognized the failures of others and ourselves and still left room to process these experiences through our needy hearts.  The article explored all of the harmful lenses we may see the world through and how they ultimately narrow our field of vision, making us quick to distrust whatever love comes our way, while at the same time dismissing that very same love sought after by those around us.  Instead of seeing the world through harsh eyes, we need the broad vision offered by patience, kindness, and humility.  

When I write those words - when I read those words - I notice the slightest tendency to roll my eyes.  I wonder if others have this experience as well.  

Where was this desire to scoff at this lens of love coming from?

When we look at everything going on in our world - global sickness, cries for justice, loss of jobs, confronting the instability of society and our own mortal frailty - it can be easy to look at a message of love and the need to see others as persons who ought to be loved as a simple platitude - a trite statement or idea that seems so insignificant and meaningless in the face of so much suffering and continued divisions without our world.  

“Lost your job and at risk of losing your home? Just add love!”

“Someone you know is sick or near death? Just add love!”

“You or someone you know has experienced a serious injustice at the hands of someone who is meant to care for you? Just add love!”

Saying words over and over again make them sound meaningless and empty... and we risk doing the same thing to love if we do not approach this free act of the will with all due reverence… and maybe a little bit of caution.  

When I speak of love, I do not mean to suggest simply putting on rose-colored glasses that obscure the difficulties of life and instead substitute an unrealistic sugar-coated vision that quickly sweeps anything considered uncomfortable under a rug.  This view of love is simplistic and rejects the very essence of what love truly is. Love is real.  Authentic and true love is the most real something can be.  

When we experience love for what it really is we find that we aren’t stuck in the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship. Instead, we see the married couple struggling with another miscarriage, or a wife looking at her husband of only two years and finding out that an aggressive cancer has left him with only six more months at best. We see parents desperately searching the streets for their child who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, to bring him home for the third time that year all while anticipating the empty promises that “this will be the last time.”

Love is real. Choosing to love means seeing the ugliness of life and the genuine desperation we can find ourselves in, and not ignoring it. It is freely choosing to be in those moments of patient suffering, to respond with kindness and humility, and to bear all things.   

The poison of cynicism infiltrates how we see God, others and ourselves and tries to reduce love to something that we can do when it is convenient, when it doesn’t take that much effort, when there is no risk involved.  

To love is to risk and if we desire to cultivate a culture rooted in love, we need to be willing to risk everything.  

One of the reasons it is so easy to roll our eyes or entertain cynical thoughts about the power of love is because the concepts of “kindness,” “patience,” and “humility” lack the hyper-aggressive verbiage that we see modeled for us in entertainment, politics, and social media.  What place does love have when trying to win an argument on Twitter?  Won’t it make me look weak? Isn’t it better that I employ sarcasm, ad hominem attacks, or resort to all out mockery so I can put someone down and build myself up?

In other words - to love others, especially those we may disagree with, is a display of weakness… and honestly, this couldn’t be more true.  

To love is to be weak, as it demands we lower the shields and walls that we build around our hearts and instead create a place of vulnerability where others may enter and come to truly know who I am.  It is precisely in this weakness that love finds its greatest strength.  Contrary to a lifestyle hidden behind the insecure walls of hypocrisy and lies, rooting ourselves in love means we can be more fully ourselves. This occurs as we become more fully self-possessed and capable of presenting who we really are to the world.  Instead of donning false identities or masks we believe make us more lovable, living with a vulnerable heart gives others access to love our true self - the self we were created to be.  

Living in this place of weakness is hard, but it is necessary… and it isn’t meant to be lived alone.  

When we can let love increase and our own tendencies towards egoism and self-interest decrease, we can find ourselves rooted in a strength that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  

-Fr. Matthew