Browsing tag: friend

  • Love Your Enemies

    Love your enemies (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6: 27-35).  (RB 4. 31)

    Loving your enemies sounds like a nice idea until you actually have enemies yourself.

    An enemy is not merely someone with whom you disagree.  You can disagree with your friends passionately and perpetually.

    Nor is an enemy an opponent in a game.  An opponent recognizes the same rules you do.

    “Love does no wrong to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10), but your enemies will accuse you anyway, even if you haven’t done anything to harm them.  They insult and threaten you when you had no thought of interfering with them at all.  An enemy is someone who acts on the intent to wrong you.

    As Christians, if we must love our enemies, and if love does no wrong to a neighbor, we cannot ourselves be anyone’s enemy, can we?

    So the enemy is not our neighbor. . . .  Aha!

    Nope.  The parable of the Good Samaritan shows that we must be good neighbors to everyone, even longstanding enemies.

    Maybe we’ve misunderstood love.  God is love, but God is not our slave.  Neither are we enslaved to those we love. A Christian concept of love is essentially voluntary.  Love ends where coercion begins.

    Christian love does set aside the self-interest of the moment for the good of the other person.  But the good of the other person is not always what that person demands.  When someone wants something that is not good, you say no, for love’s sake.

    Love yields and sacrifices, but love is not suicidal.  God is the one who called you into being.  Therefore you must exist, and this may include resistance.

    We know that “the Lord disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12:6; Proverbs 3:12).  Therefore a Christian concept of love includes setting boundaries and enforcing standards.  Without wronging anyone, you can communicate that you find the insults offensive and the threats alarming.  Make sure your enemies realize how they’re affecting you.  Sometimes people don’t know that they’re hurting you.  It may be that your enemy is not a beast.

    So give the benefit of the doubt.  Make space.  Swim away.  There’s room enough in the ocean for both of you.

    If, after you’ve peaceably turned away from a fight, your enemy pursues you, intent on dominating you wherever you may be, it is time to enforce the principle at issue.  Whatever rule you enforce on your enemy must be one that you yourself are abiding by.  To govern your own behavior by the same standards that you apply to others is one aspect of loving your neighbor as yourself.  And the standard you try to live by was not invented by you.  For example: loving your enemy.

    Like animals, humans will usually decide it’s not worth the trouble of bothering you, once they discover that you’re peaceable when left alone but determined to defend yourself when attacked.  There are occasions when Christians are inspired by the Holy Spirit to set aside their right to self-defense, imitating Christ’s sacrifice.  But no human being has the authority to require someone else’s self-sacrifice.  And if you’re the only one standing between your enemy and someone weaker than yourself, love may require that you fight.

    There may come a time when your enemy is too big for you to handle alone.  In this situation, escape is what you should aim for.  Escape first, and then work on making new friends, so you’re not alone next time.  A cohesive group is unappealing to aggressors.  They’re looking for vulnerable singletons to pick off.

    If only this were the end of it.  We could take a break, go home, be safe.  But sometimes strangers are not the problem.  The enemy is someone close.  Does loving your enemy include suffering wrongs at the hands of the one you love?  These are deep waters, and murky.  Explain the situation to a kind stranger. There are times when it’s the stranger who is your friend.

    And then there’s the enemy who used to love you.  This is the one who will break your heart.  Why did this person despise your devotion and turn against you, treating you with contempt?  There’s nothing quite like the distress of loving the enemy who once was dear.  The world seethes with ex-spouses, ex-lovers and so many other exes who are now enemies.

    On an ordinary day without tragedy, loving any of them comes down to treating people well who do not reciprocate your efforts.  Converse cheerfully with complainers.  Keep calm during a hostile confrontation.  Patiently put up with irritations.  Kindly share with those who’ve been selfish.  Remain reliable even with those who are deceitful.  Retain self-control around those who’ve rejected discipline. Intercede for those who’ve wronged you.

    God himself promises to reward us if we behave well toward those who behave badly toward us.  Nothing anyone can say will ever make this easy, but the Holy Spirit can make it possible.

     

     

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  • Help The Troubled

    You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matthew 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 14-19)

    There’s all the trouble in the world, and there’s what you can do about it.

    Not much.

    You don’t know the name of the neighbor who suns himself on his back steps in the cool of the morning in his briefs, but you’ve seen him up close once. He was nearly naked and mostly drunk then too. You let him know his fence was on fire, and he did get up to throw some water on it, not another cigarette butt, so you probably don’t need to worry about him. That was the fence on his other side: not your problem. Lower the shades so the kids don’t get another visual of the bulging briefs over breakfast.

    The friend down the street is going back to her maiden name after her husband left her on her own with two little girls. All you volunteered for was carpool, but she looked so worn out at the end of the week that you went back and handed her your lasagna. You made it from scratch: the meat filling, the ricotta layers, the tomato sauce. It took all afternoon to put together, and parting with it does still hurt some, but not as much as watching their lives splatter.

    You never even met the woman who signed up to teach Sunday school and then just didn’t show, for whatever reason. You thought you were going to be the aide, sucker. Shouldn’a been there. Here’s the roster: now it’s on you. A dozen innocent, willing faces are counting on you to explain the gap between earth and heaven.

    It’s a fine day for a picnic. Release your children into the park and let them run around while you listen to the regulars vent their grievances. They have everything the world has to offer, and no end of complaints. They’ve achieved the American Dream: a house inside the Loop, private schools, and two food allergies in every kitchen. They will rant as long as you will listen, but you’ve reached your outside limit. Time to hit the zoo and see some animals at feeding time.

    Funny how all the kids’ legs give out as soon as they pass the zoo exit. They can run for hours, but they limp, cramp, blister and drag their feet when you try to hurry them through marijuana plaza on the corner of Cambridge and Fannin. If you could make the light before someone hustles you for cash, you’d be at the Metro Rail station across from Hermann Hospital.

    Now there’s a wild sight: on the train platform, a girl wearing nothing but a hospital gown sits in one of the logo wheelchairs from a different hospital up the street. The I.V. line is still stuck in her vein, and the drip bag is still dangling from the rolling pole. Everyone else knows to walk around these impeding objects. Do you really have to stop and ask if she needs help?

    Turns out she doesn’t. Her boyfriend comes over when he sees you talking to her and tells you so. He’s been working out a lot lately, from the look of those muscles. His tattoos proclaim something you don’t have time to read, because he’s too edgy to stand still in one place for long. The vibe you get from him is rage. She looks like she’s about to slump out of the wheelchair, and she can barely nod her head: yes. When he circles back around, lights up a joint and hands it to her, she can still reach for it, though. Maybe you’re witnessing an exchange of loving devotion.  Or maybe he’s the one who put her in the hospital, and now he’s retrieving his property, along with a couple of items of equipment that they do not give away when they discharge patients.

    You stopped, so a bright, competent intern stops too. Yes, the boyfriend does look like an explosion about to happen. Yes, the escaped girl does look like a wreck. One of you keep an eye on him, and one of you put in a call to the hospital with the missing wheelchair and the absentee patient. Wait till half a dozen EMS guys his own size are carefully closing in. Someone with backup is talking him into letting her get lifted into an ambulance.

    Mom! What’s for dinner?

    Not lasagna, actually. Maybe scrounge night again. Be glad you have a dad who’s happy to see you when he comes home.

    Fall into bed. You’ve done what you could. It’s all a human being can do. Let God spell you on holding the universe together.

    Domestic Violence Hotline U.S.A.

     

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