Loving the Other

Through Advent I took a break from Only a Sojourner in order to post reflections on the daily Advent readings at https://adailyadvent.blogspot.com/

Now, well into the season of Epiphany, I'll offer a few words related to my two previous posts before moving on.

What does it mean to love another? It may be easy enough to "love" someone we are drawn to, someone with whom we share a close connection . . . family members, friends, those with whom we share common interests and concerns. But what does it mean to love the narcissist, the bully, the abuser, the cruel one?

The previous post of Thomas Merton's thoughts in No Man Is an Island provided some clues.

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . . [No Man Is an Island, p. 5]

To love another person, we seek not our own good, not even the pleasant feeling of having done something good. Rather, we will what is truly good for the other.

I realize that sounds like a subjective standard. I can look at another person and think I know what is good for them, what is best for them, but I have to confess that like you, I never see all the way through another person. I never know what is hidden within the deepest caverns of their being. I never truly know what they need simply by observing them on the outside.

What I do know -- or at least what I believe I know -- is that God's design for every human being is wholeness, that we live fully human lives. (In the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus famously said, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive"). God desires that we each live as fully as possible into the unique personhood for which God created us.

Thus, to truly love another person means that we seek the other's wholeness . . . we act on their behalf that they might become more and more the person God created them to be . . . we act in their lives in ways that are healing, in ways that call forth from them the image of God that is written into their soul's DNA. For as Merton suggests, not only is this person's destiny to be considered, but also the destiny of God's entire kingdom (p. 8). God's work of moving persons toward wholeness is part of God's wider project, what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," to bring all people to this healing wholeness; therefore, to love another person truly is also to love what God is doing in the world.

So given this notion of love, which acts for the benefit of the other in his or her becoming . . . and given that there is a sense of the common good, the kingdom which is coming . . . here are some examples of what love is not:

* Love does not stroke a narcissist and feed his or her narcissism.

* Love does not bow before a bully and enable his or her bullying.

* Love does not have a blind eye toward abusive behavior, excusing it as "he/she cannot help themselves."

* Love does not reward attention-seekers just because their ego wants to be continually in the spotlight.

Perhaps one obvious example will help. No one who truly loves an alcoholic would think of handing him/her a drink when they are trying to get sober. What family members and friends must learn on the road to sobriety is what some call "tough love," the strength to say "no" in order to keep the addict's health, wholeness, and best interest first and foremost.

In loving another, we don't act in ways that keep them imprisoned in the small egocentric self. We want to love them in ways that somehow release them or encourage them to their more expansive, truer, authentic self.

Then how shall we know how best to love another person? Good question. You see by now, don't you, that love is hard work. And because we don't see the inside of the other fully, our love for them is not always clear-cut. Here again, Merton helps.

One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him. . . .

In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God. . . .

If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom. (pp. 7-9)

In Merton's vision of love, the one who desires to love another must engage in his/her own strenuous inner work, deepening in God, knowing ourselves more fully, seeing our own light and darkness with more clarity. We engage in this work of spiritual becoming ourselves so that we see more clearly, slowly and over time, praying that we increasingly take on the heart and eyes of God within ourselves.

This attention to our own inner landscape is what Merton calls being "rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom."

Merton says I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for the other.

This is difficult work and no one gets it perfectly. The temptation for me -- your temptation may be different -- is to withhold love until I'm "doing it right." When that is the case, I will never love.

So the invitation for me is to begin where I am . . . to give attention to my own interior . . . to see more and more of my own truth . . . and to look on others with compassion, asking, "What does he/she truly need to be whole? How does God see them? Is there some way I can help love them to wholeness?"

Sometimes the answer is tangible food or clothing or cash for a utility payment.

Sometimes the answer is an affirming word, a listening ear, or quiet presence.

Sometimes the answer is a well-timed, well-placed question which allows the other to explore more deeply the implications of what they are considering.

And sometimes the answer is a firm, solid, "No, not now!"

A Different Kind of Freedom

Monday, on Memorial Day in the U.S., admonitions from a variety of sources were cast out via the internet and various media outlets, all encouraging our gratitude for those who paid for freedom with their lives. It was a day to remember those whose lives were given for our nation's freedom. Several persons in my extended family and circle of relationship came to mind as I thought of what Memorial Day stands for. Certainly, the freedom to express oneself, the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness are important and not to be taken for granted. The freedom Americans often take as a given is not enjoyed by everyone in the world. The day reminded us of the sobriety and gratitude such freedom demands.

In the spiritual realm, there is another freedom that is even more crucial, a freedom that transcends a nation's freedom or any person's liberties. Freedom in the outer world is no guarantee of freedom in the inner world. Outward freedom, that provided by governments and social structures provides us with the liberty to move about, to seek the common good, to pursue our own happiness, and to seek (or not seek) fullness of life in a way that is mutually beneficial to others within society.

Inward freedom, though, is an entirely different matter, having little to do with outward structures or circumstance, almost nothing to do with the particular political system or social arrangement in which one lives. Inner freedom is a matter of soul . . . so much a matter of soul that a person may live in a setting in which there is little or no outer freedom, and yet have an immense sense of interior freedom. Nelson Mandela, imprisoned unjustly in South Africa, comes to mind as someone who was outwardly imprisoned with almost no outer freedom, yet who lived with an amazingly high sense of interior freedom. Mandela's body could be confined for 27 years on Robben Island and in Pollsmoor Prison, but never could his soul be imprisoned.

I'm thinking today of the ways you and I live imprisoned by the things that we've gathered to ourselves in hopes they would bring us happiness. And I'm thinking of this in terms of the Gospel reading that was appointed for Monday, May 28, Memorial Day in the United States.


17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.'”

20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

(Mark 10:17 - 27, NIV)


I don't know myself very well. Most of us don't. Day after day we busily collect to ourselves the things we think will make us happy and fulfilled . . . . the diplomas, bank account balances, job titles, houses, accolades, and much more that we cling to, hoping for a life of meaning.

Ignatius of Loyola called these things attachments, because not only do I attach them to my own sense of self, but I also attach significance to them in a way that is out of proportion to what they can actually give me.

Day to day, I tend not to be aware of those things I cling to for happiness -- they dwell in such a deeply interiorized part of me -- but when I'm seen all the way through -- "Jesus looked at him and loved him" -- by one with eyes to see my interior, the things I've clutched to myself are named for what they are.

Inner freedom begins with the grace to see or identify the things to which I cling, the things that keep me from walking the path of my unique life wholeheartedly. This seeing means I must begin to notice where I am NOT free inwardly, the places in my interior landscape in which my own compulsions or "inordinate attachments" dwell (desires that are blown out of proportion, that are beyond "ordinary" and thus "inordinate"). These attachments to which I cling are usually the people, roles, and things I cannot imagine living without. When clinging to them, I am not free, but rather tied to something in which I have invested my happiness. Think "addiction," because we are all addicts, all addicted to something, even to many things . . . praise, status, affirmation, security, money, pleasure, even to our own sickness.

The extent to which we cling to anything which is not God -- even to our own ideas or notions of God, even to our own idea of what "faith" is -- we're not truly free.

With the young man in the Gospel story, Jesus simply put his finger on the place where the man was not free. For him, the issue was money, possessions, clinging to them and holding them in a way that tied him down and prevented him from making decisions apart from his belongings.

Like all attachments, his possessions were heavy. They weighed him down and held him in place, so that he could not move on down the path in a life-giving way. He was essentially paralyzed by the things he held onto, the things he could not let go. It really didn't matter that he was a good man, a moral man, a religious man who kept commandments, because his clinging held him in place and prevented him from moving on. He was stuck.

Whatever my attachments are -- and whatever yours are -- they weigh us down. They are heavy, cumbersome. Attachments don't travel well.

Maybe a couple of practical exercises will help us.

First, seeing what is within you. In order to reflect on your own inner freedom, consider something important in your life, perhaps a person or a car or a piece of furniture. Ask yourself, "What would I be without _______?" Do the same thing with a job title or role you carry out in life: "Who would I be if I were not ______?"

Of course there are people, pets, and roles that are important to us, which we do not want to do without. Remember, though, Ignatius felt that the guideline for considering inner freedom is "inordinate attachment," in other words, attachments beyond what is ordinary and healthy, beyond what falls into the realm of "addictive behavior." (In 12-step work, the key question is often, "Is my attachment to this substance, behavior, or person 'unmanageable'?")

"Has my attachment to this person or thing become unmanageable?"

Second, NO judgement. When you begin to see yourself and the degree to which you are inwardly free or unfree, do not judge yourself as good or bad. Leave judgment at the door. It is a great grace, perhaps the greatest grace, to be able to see yourself as you truly are and to withhold judging what you see in yourself. (By the way, not judging yourself is also the first step in not judging others . . . "Love your neighbor AS YOURSELF".)

When he looked at the young man, "Jesus loved him." The phrase should not be missed and is included in the text intentionally. You and I are seen all the way through in love, not judgement.

God has seen already all your attachments, all the ways you are not inwardly free . . . and God still loves you completely. Just because you see something about yourself for the first time does not mean that part of you just arrived. It has been there all along. You are just now seeing it. So resist judging yourself. See it, name it, but don't judge it.

Third, the prayer for freedom. Once you notice an interior area in which you are not inwardly free, pray this simple prayer: "God, free me from the need to cling to ________" . . . or "God, free me from the need to be _______." That's it. You don't have to fix your lack of inner freedom. You only have to be aware of your attachment and then be willing to pray for inner freedom. Then repeat the short prayer whenever you notice an attachment weighing you down in daily life.

[I picked up this short prayer for inner freedom from Jesuit priest and missionary Max Oliva (I believe the book was Free to Pray, Free to Love), who calls this short method the "Freedom Prayer."]

We, like the man in the Gospel, are often held in place by our lack of inner freedom. We are stuck where we are. In my own life, I seem to hear regularly an invitation to awareness, to become more and more aware of my own lack of inner freedom, and to do so without judgement.

[If you are interested in a simple, yet lovingly blunt, approach to attachments and inner freedom, try Anthony de Mello's The Way to Love. In the areas of spirituality and personal unfolding, it's a top 10 Must-Read in my opinion. De Mello, a Jesuit priest from India, could be both gentle and in-your-face within the same paragraph. He's the contemporary master when it comes to inner freedom and attachments.]

Two Images for Life and Prayer and Reality

This summer a large group of folks with whom I share life is reading Anthony De Mello’s The Way to Love. I’ve come across a couple of images in recent days that illumine the spiritual journey in some helpful ways. It occurs to me that they may be companion images that would help process De Mello’s ideas in The Way to Love.


First, we each respond and react to life and to life situations in ways we have learned over many years. Most of these responses live beneath the surface of our awareness. We react in certain ways and then assume, “This is just the way I am,” or “That is just the way life is.” In a sense, we have a whole storehouse of internal videos that play in our heads. These “videos,” which include our commentaries on people and events, also include attributing motives to others which may or may not be factual.

For instance, if we feel excluded, we may have a video that plays back other times we felt excluded, and the video may include a commentary that says things like, “That person has always excluded me,” and “I must be a bad person to be excluded like this,” and “She is a bad person because she has shunned me” . . . and on and on it goes.

For me, anyway, the impact of this internal video and commentary is spiraling. I spiral downward . . . downward . . . downward. The further I spiral, the more outrageous my commentary becomes. And all the while it seems very reasonable to me. If I don’t catch the “spiral” early and stop the internal video, I can be in a deep funk for hours and even for days. (“I needed to talk to him. . . . He didn’t answer my phone call. . . . He never answers my phone calls. . . . He must not like me. . . . I’ll never call him again. . . . Maybe I need to quit my job. . . . I should move to another city. . . . I’m such a failure. . . .”)

See? It makes no rational sense. If it weren’t so real, it would be humorous to see it written like this. But this is the internal noise with which each of us lives.

Every person has a whole host of these internal videos. In a sense, they have served to help us make sense of life. And for most of us, they have served as defense mechanisms, ways we have protected ourselves from the hurts and cruelties of life.

Most often, though, these videos are the cause of our upset, turmoil, fear, and defensiveness. We may say to another person, “You did this to me,” but the other person did not “cause” our specific reaction to their behavior. While their behavior may have been inappropriate, unhealthy, and even hurtful, our response to them is mostly a product of the internal video that plays within our minds in reaction to them.

The spiritual life invites our awareness of these internal videos that play within us, some of which are dear to us or seem hardwired within us. Awareness of the videos is the first movement toward detaching from them and from their compelling, addicting pull on us.


Here is another image.

Imagine you are in a valley, looking up at a mountain. You see the mountain and its shape, the trees and rocks that cover it, and the peak of the mountain. The mountain is really there. But take your gaze off the mountain for just a moment . . . then look at the mountain again. This time, you cannot see much of the mountain, because clouds have moved in to block your view. Your vision is obscured by the weather pattern.

If you didn’t know better, you could believe that the mountain no longer exists, or at least that the mountain’s pinnacle is no longer there. You could easily believe that the clouds are the main thing, that the weather is the only reality. After all, on this gaze, the weather is all you can see.

And in fact, the weather pattern is one part of the reality, but it also masks another more solid, more foundational reality . . . which is the mountain or the landscape behind and beneath the clouds.

If I am not careful, I can allow the clouds or the weather to determine my perception and shade how or what I see.

And the reality is that the weather will change. The clouds will move in and out, based on the weather.

You could liken the clouds and the changing weather to our human perception of reality, to the way we see life. To lean on the previous image, the clouds are something like an internal video. They are the immediate focus of our sight, what we most quickly perceive. If our gaze stops there, we will miss the more solid, foundational reality behind and beneath the clouds.

In a sense, the clouds, though beautiful, are a distraction. They obscure the mountain and its peak. The clouds come and go, but the mountain remains.

Spiritual vision, which is grown within us over time, is a function of prayer and meditation, the slow unmasking of the clouds and the gradual learning to trust what is behind the clouds. Quiet prayer, contemplative prayer, gives a foundation for connecting most deeply with God, grounding us in the Real, learning to recognize the distractions for what they are, and helping us to see beyond the scope of our physical vision.

When Is "Love" Love?

The daily reading for today is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The passage, Matthew 5:43 – 48, says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

It may be the most challenging passage in the Christian Scriptures. Those outside a Christian framework notice when professed Christians act in ways that are hateful or resentful or counter to the words of Jesus.

I lived many years in a religious climate that often said things like, “I love you, but I do not like you” . . . or said, “I love you,” but quietly implied, “I’d love you more if you’d change your behavior” . . . or that communicated, “I know I’m supposed to love people – even enemies and rivals and those who threaten me – but I’m human and I cannot do that, so I won’t even try.”

So basically I learned lip-service to love, while resigning myself to live far beneath the invitation to live a loving life.

Love loves what is without trying to change it or manipulate it. Love is not invested in making the object “love-able” (as if that could happen anyway!). Love is not dependent on a love-able object or person. Rather, love arises from the inner core, from the depths of the lover.

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, love trusts what is . . . love stays with what is . . . love is not continually manipulating and controlling, trying to get someone else to conform to who I am or to what I think should be the shape of reality . . . love bears with what is . . . love does not try to align everything “right” in the outside world, thinking that will put things right in the inner world.

Love bears long with what is . . . love believes long with what is . . . love hopes long with what is . . . love endures long with what is.

I notice today that love leaves for no exceptions and no escape-clauses. Thus, love leaves no room to say, “I will love if” or “I will love when.” Love loves what is.

This kind of love is not based on contingency or what changes in the outer world, but on an inner state.

And for the people or groups that I don’t want to love, the ones I want to change before I give myself to them in love, there is no escape-clause, no exception, no path out of love. Even for enemies, rivals, those with whom I disagree, and those who threaten my security, Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who do harm to you.”

If I excuse myself from loving others because I am a weak human being – and it is the human condition to be self-serving and self-protecting – and if because of my human condition I want to hang onto my resentments and want to go on hating enemies and wishing harm on those who are different than I am, then at least let me make that statement of my human weakness as a confession of my sinfulness and my waywardness. Let me say that I am a weak human being in all humility . . . and not as a statement of pride, not as a prelude to enjoin war and hatred and venom on my enemies.

In other words, if I fall back on my fallen human condition, then I had best do so in humility and repentance, not in pride, anger, and venom toward those who are different from me. My inability to love should be a confession of my sinfulness, not an excuse to perpetuate hatred.

“Loving enemies . . . praying for those who persecute you” . . . this is a way counter to basic human learning, but this is the radical way of love, the radical way walked by Jesus, the Trailblazer. This is the new framework, the new construct – called the Kingdom of God – to which I (and you) am invited, in Jesus’ name.

The Way to Serve . . . and to Love

Among some Christian mission organizations, I’m noticing a shift in strategy. Whereas at one time these groups would have been in-your-face aggressive, zealous, and very overt in their evangelism, many are shifting their ways.

I know of mission agencies that are now talking about doing concrete acts of service for those who are the focus of their evangelistic endeavors. Their statements use the language of “love,” and suggest that these acts of service are done in love for the cause of Christ.

Some of these deeds involve offering medical, educational, agricultural, or economic services in foreign countries. Some involve more tangible, hands-on efforts closer to home . . . sitting with a homebound person, doing house repairs and painting, providing child-care, or offering attentiveness to young people in an after-school program.

Each of these expressions, and more, are tangible ways to offer oneself to Christ for the sake of others. Those who give their time in these ways offer a concrete ministry to persons who have specific needs. They generously offer their time and energy.

There is, however, an undercurrent I have seen and heard in this emerging strategy. It arises from the motivation for these “deeds of love.” Sometimes the motivation is spoken plainly, and other times whispered secretly. I have literally heard it spoken and read it written, stated something like this: “We are going to love people by serving them, in order to gain their trust so we can preach the Gospel to them.”

In other words, love people and build trust by doing deeds of service, then preach the Gospel. Use love and service to get in the front door, then tell them the really important stuff.

Perhaps this is an improvement on the old mission policy which was forceful and heavy-handed. It didn’t honor the “other,” but put the one sharing the Christian message in a position of power. There was also the not-so-subtle understanding . . . “I believe that I have the truth in my pocket and that my responsibility as a Christian is to share the truth I have with those who don’t have it. I’m right . . . you’re wrong . . . but let me tell you how you can be right like me.”

The older model of evangelism only asked that you be a salesperson, able to close the deal. Believe me, in my former life, I taught many of those workshops on how to “close the faith-deal”.

At least the new wave evangelism includes some service, some action on behalf of those in need. Yet, here is my issue: This action is done under the guise of “love.” This service is misnamed “love,” when it is actually a tool, an instrument for getting in the front door, for building trust, for gaining access. Service pretends to be love, but in truth is a tool for some other motivation.

Love will have none of that. Love seeks no reward. Love does not manipulate. Love does not act one way in hopes of gaining access for another purpose. To serve someone in order to gain trust and access may be something (like manipulation or control), but it is not love.

There are no conditions to love. Love does not say, “I will do this for you, but you, then, must let me have some time to tell you about Christ.”

Love does not use one pretense to attain some other advantage for itself. “I will love you if it helps me gain access, if it wins me the right to share something with you later.”

Love simply gives itself, regardless of the other, whether the other person receives the love or not . . . whether the other person opens his/her door or not . . . whether the other welcomes it or not.

Love gives itself without condition. It is generated not by outer circumstances, not by what it will gain me, not by what it will do for me or even for God. Love is generated from within. It is the nature of love to love, whether there is a return on that love or not. In fact, I would say that when “love” expects a return, it is not love at all . . . but only a cleverly disguised form of control or manipulation.

I have a litmus test I use with myself. “Can I love this person or thing or situation without needing to change it?” Or to put it another way, “If this person/thing/situation never changes, can I still embody Love in it?”

You see, love is not dependent on the change that may (or may not) take place in the other person, or situation, or thing.

In a committed relationship, can I love this other person, even if he/she never changes?

In my work, can I still embody love, even if the work environment never gets better?

Can my life be fulfilled and happy, even if I never move to that town where there are no problems and the weather is always pleasant?

In other words, can I love what is, without needing to change it?

Of course, you will find that when you love what is, without needing to change it, the other person or thing very often does change when faced with the generosity of a love that does not need to control or manipulate it.

Many of us at The Center for Christian Spirituality in Houston are reading through Anthony De Mello’s The Way to Love this summer. De Mello has a way of cutting through illusions (and delusions) about our capacity to love, about what love truly is. What we call love is most often not love at all, and De Mello has a straightforward way of calling us out on that.

Here are just a few of his statements, from different parts of the book:

• Love can only exist in freedom. The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover. (p. 27)
• No thing or person outside of you has the power to make you happy or unhappy. (p. 40)
• The royal road to mysticism and to Reality does not pass through the world of people. It passes through the world of actions that are engaged in for themselves without an eye to success or to gain – or profit actions. (p. 66)
• Here is a second quality of love – its gratuitousness. Like the tree, the rose, the lamp, it gives and asks for nothing in return. (p. 78)
• Love so enjoys the loving that it is blissfully unaware of itself. (p. 79)
• The light, the fragrance and the shade are not produced at the approach of persons and turned off when there is no one there. These things, like love, exist independently of persons. Love simply is, it has no object. They simply are, regardless of whether someone will benefit from them or not. . . . Their left hand has no consciousness of what their right hand does. (p. 79 – 80)
• The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies. (p. 80)

[Anthony De Mello, The Way to Love (New York: Doubleday, 1991).]