The Radical Act of Love

Yesterday there was another mass shooting in an elementary school. Children’s lives were ended yet again by senseless violence. I remain convicted in the belief that gun regulation will curb these ceaseless tragedies. All statistics indicate it is the quickest way to protect our children and our country. I wholeheartedly support any legislation to restrict access to guns for those who will use them for violence. It is appalling that the murder of children in their place of education is unsurprising.

There is another issue weighing on our country, an issue we cannot legislate for, that these shootings reinforce. Hatred. Rampant, unchecked, and normalized hatred. We are quick to hate each other. We hate each other over politics, religion, sexuality, gender, parenting, race, mistakes, language, and differing beliefs. We hate each other based on social media posts. We hate each other based on bumper stickers. We hate each other based on any number of the categories we sort people into. We hate without justification; we hate with it. We hate without purpose; we hate with it. We hate with righteous indignation or without. We justify hate with politics, with religion, with social justice, with morals, with protest, with God, with science, with identity, and on and on and on. We love to hate each other. It’s easy and it feels nice, and we are convinced that our hatred is right. But what does hatred get us? What does hatred actually accomplish? Does it change hearts? Or policies? Does it improve our societies? Our well-being? Our communities? Does it actually create anything good? No. All hatred can create is violence, destruction, and chaos. Yet an increasing number of people hold hatred towards another group as a guiding principle in their life.

To hate is to be human. I hate. It’s a natural response to threat, real or perceived. Under no circumstances, however, do I want hate to guide my decision making, my belief systems, or my interactions with other people. Sometimes I fail at this, cruelly belittled loved ones over their political beliefs. Made harmful generalizations about whole groups of people in casual conversation. Hatred is easy, love is not. Love demands we see humanity in those who hate us. When we cannot connect to their humanity, love demands that we find it elsewhere and root in it. Activism rooted in love is more effective and powerful than activism rooted in hate. Let us fight for each other out of love for one another, not hatred of those on the “other side”. What would it look like if protests were grounded in community, communion, and love, instead of anger and hatred? What would it be like if debates were not dripping with vitriol, but compassion? It is certainly the less likely path, the more strenuous path. It is a path laden with frustration, repetition, and a need for deep patience. It is also the only path that works. I have seen it and lived it. Hearts can soften. People will grow. And even if they do not, when you choose to lead with love, you will soften and grow. I promise. Life will open up and offer more beauty, connection, and light.

I must clarify, love does not mean tolerating abuse or maltreatment. Love is not boundaryless. Love is not passivity. Love is action, effort, and discussion with the absence of violence or retribution. Love is refraining from abuse or maltreatment in any form. Love is abstaining from dehumanizing any group, from transgender people to Christians to Black women to Republicans. Love is seeing the person behind the categories they fit into. Love is holding space for nuance, mistakes, and nonlinear growth. Love is using softness whenever possible. Love is allowing ourselves to feel the pain of others. Love is allowing our hearts to break over and over without hardening them. Love is the patience to hold open respectful discussions with the aim of mutual understanding, not debates with the aim of being “right”. Love is policy work that expands resources and opportunity. Love is rooting in the things we value and care about, not the things we hate. Love is community building. Love is seeing the innate humanity in every. single. person. Love is transformative. Love is radical. To live embodied in love creates radical transformation. It is a resistance of its own. It changed me.

I will end with the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as a supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God."" We cannot create a more loving future through hatred, we can only heal our world through love.

Additional Resources:

bell hook’s All About Love (or any of her books)

Dr. Amanda Kemp

Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama, and Douglas Abram’s The Book of Joy