In Defense of Love
I think I remember This dream that I had This love's gonna save us From a world that's gone mad I guess I just feel like What happened to that? ... But I know that I'm open And I know that I'm free And I'll always let hope in Wherever I'll be. -John Mayer, I Guess I just Feel Like
Dear Friend,
Once upon a time, I was the new president of my small community’s HOA. I did not volunteer, nor did I want the job. Our community was struggling, and it was partially because one particular neighbor had bullied the previous and current board into some irresponsible financial decisions with threats of litigation and verbal confrontations in the neighborhood (targeting board members and their families!), and threats of physical attacks and a vicious on-line 24/7 assault with half-truths and complete falsehoods on the integrity of people who were volunteering to serve and who were working to repair the mess this very neighbor had helped to create. From my vantage point, the neighbor was sadistic, and determined to make life miserable for the residents of my little community, and he was succeeding. Spectacularly.
In the middle of this craziness, Abi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Whatever compassion or patience I had for my neighbor evaporated instantly.
I was ready to fight. This neighbor, after all, was doing real, not imagined, harm, treating people like they were there to satisfy his longing simply to be cruel. Add to that, I was determined to live out my daughter’s few remaining months savoring whatever joy we might find together, and this neighbor was definitely a barrier that had to be overcome quickly, and my attempts to treat him with dignity and respect were having absolutely no discernible effect. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I began concocting a number of pretty dark schemes to take my vengence. I’m not proud, and I learned a couple of things about myself:
I am not immune to the rage that seems to permeate the air we breathe. I had been overcome by rage. It was visceral. I could feel it in my body, grabbing and digging its claws into the back of my neck. This was way, way, way beyond simple anger. I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t like it, but I also loved it. It thrilled me. Again, I’m not proud this.
My rage can cloud my vision to the belovedness of my neighbors, and to the fact that each bears the fingerprints of a God who is madly in love with him or her.
I could be pretty good at being really, really bad. In fact, I could definitely have been better at hurting my nemesis than he was at hurting my friends and family, and worst of all…
I can be pretty good at dressing up my dark inclinations in white robes. I even began to believe my own lies that the righteousness of my cause justified whatever indignity I could inflict on this particular neighbor. After all, I had tried love, and it had not worked, and he was continuing to hurt people. People that I loved.
Perhaps this makes no sense to you. I hope it does not. But I deny my susceptibility to being overcome by evil at the risk of my own soul. I am not strong enough to stand against evil on my own. I simply am not.
These days I find myself wanting to devote more time to defending Love, but I have resisted.
Why have I resisted defending Love? Because I sense the danger that anything I might offer will be heard through a political filter. It seems to me the line between political view and personal conviction has almost been erased. This defense of Love falls squarely into the latter category. This is 100% about how I want to live my life, and how I believe I am personally called to embody Christ. You are free to disagree, but I do not, indeed I cannot, accept that Love must come with a party affiliation. I have resisted this post because I fear my strong belief in the political neutrality of Love is likely to offend many on either side of the political chasm. Everybody wants to claim Love for their team, which encourages me. But it’s time that I leave fear behind and speak boldly for Love, especially given the shift of last week. If not now, then when?
Why do I feel compelled to defend Love, at all? Because I sense a growing consensus among my family, friends and neighbors that we have reached a point where the righteous outrage demands more than a determined and spirited defense; that we are arriving, or have already arrived at a time when our best response to evil is to be better at evil than the evil itself:
I’ve heard it said,
The only way to defeat the father of lies is to lie better than he does,
which seems to suggest the superior employment of evil to defeat evil becomes virtuous by its intent and success. This is the lie I want to stand against with all my might, and to reject any suggestions that playing defense is at best, naïve and winsome, and at worst, cowardly. Do you notice this attitude seeping in? I wonder if it’s sneaking into the ventilation systems of some places I would never have expected to see it.
Or perhaps you might find yourself agreeing with this, and if you do, I’m not saying you are wrong. We certainly live in a complicated and nuanced world, where the conflict between good and evil, which often seems to simmer under the surface might be boiling over into plain sight, as it does from time to time. As it has for millennia. And the stakes seem so high. For me to deny this conflict is right out in the open seems at least a little naïve, doesn’t it? Maybe even intentionally naïve, which probably is cowardice.
But it does not follow to me that my best course of action is to lose faith in Love and to engage evil with evil or violence with violence. From my little place in the world, even if the employment of one evil to defeat another evil is successful, it merely gives birth to a new, more powerful evil. That seems likely to me, to unleash a chain reaction of evil that would be almost impossible to contain, leaving no room for Love.
In the 1986 film, The Mission, Father Gabriel, when asked by a well-intentioned Jesuit brother to bless his desire to wage a violent and just war against the colonial powers who were enslaving the aboriginal South Americans, states:
I can’t bless you. If you’re right, you‘ll have God’s blessing. If you’re wrong, my blessing won’t mean anything. If might makes right, then Love has no place in the world… maybe so….maybe so. But I do not have the strength to live in a world like that. I can’t bless you.
I choose Love not because I am certain that I am right, but because I am certain that I do not have the strength to live in a world without it. Defeating evil with evil is not and cannot be the answer for me.
So if being good at evil is not the answer, then…
…we need a better weapon than evil to defeat evil. And I think already we have one.
Among the many things I find so compelling about Christianity is that it embraces the ultimate power of Love, and insists that Love’s power makes a mockery the power of evil.
We are taught that the triune God - who is perfect Love - spoke the universe (and us) into existence. And the incomprehensible creative power of Love didn’t stop in the beginning. Even today, scientist estimate there are perhaps thousand of stars are born every second in the universe.
All of Christianity seems to me a beautiful portrait of the redemptive power of Love, and its power to overcome any evil: deception, betrayal, hatred, abuse, condemnation, marginalization of God’s beloved children, each of whom is crafted in God’s own image. Even the ultimate evil of death is overcome by Love, and by Love alone.
When I think of creative and redemptive power of Love, the idea that evil might quake in the face of Love doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me. Violence and evil are overcome by Love. Not greater violence and more evil.
It occurs to me that anytime one of Jesus’s followers, attempted to overcome evil with evil - He rebuked them in no uncertain terms. What is more, I cannot find a single instance where Jesus used evil to overcome evil. Not one. To do so would imply a loss of faith in the power of Love, and in the power of God, who is Love, itself. And if our God incarnate, who seemed to be laser focused on glorifying his Father, refused to tap into the dark side - even for a just cause - who am I to do so?
But wait. There’s more. I sometimes find myself drawn to the diabolical lie that evil has a face, and it is the face of my neighbor, like the one I introduced you to earlier. When that happens and I am blinded to the belovedness of my neighbor, and deny his or her identity as an image-bearer of the Holy God. And when I mistake my neighbor’s face for the face of evil, I am compelled to act, certainly. When I also give into despair and accept the lie that Love is powerless against the forces of darkness, and when let that view take root in my heart, my response is to forsake Love, to do evil to my neighbor, and to dress up my evil deeds in imagined virtue.
I get that things are not always so clear. I recognize there’s a line past which it might be appropriate, for many to abandon Love. But I simply have no confidence in my ability to discern when we have crossed that line. My judgment is clouded by my ego and my impatience. I was not ready to unleash my rage on my neighbor until my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. What does that say about me and my judgment? At best, my judgment is fickle. At worst, it is arbitrary and easily manipulated.
So I choose faith. I choose hope. I choose Love. Especially Love.
No matter what.
Oremus,
Ć
Father, You are Love, itself. You speak and worlds come into existence. Protect me from my own outrage, and Close my eyes and ears to the lies of the evil one, Who mocks and denies your power and tempts me to forsake Love. I ask because because I want to embody you with integrity and courage. You in me. Me in you. C
YES YES YES!!!
I am IN!!!
Chris. You have beautifully spoken the truth and shined God’s light on our best hope🙏🏻