Love Makes You Human

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Twelve letters into our Alphabet of Life series we arrive at the verb most vital to human survival. I would despair of creating a true depiction of love, except someone already has.

After all, God created you.

Love is who you are

Made in the image of a God who is love (1 John 4:8), in love you will find your true home, your reason for being, and daily job description. “Whoever does not love abides in death,” 1 John 3:15 warns–the death of your humanity.

Over 518,000 Americans have died in the Covid pandemic as of this posting. Does it matter? Are every single one of them worthy of mention? God is not a numbers guy–he sees unique, irreplaceable gifts he’s given–each death a loss to the rest. Do you struggle to agree?

Who is worthy of love?

We are born to the lie that only the worthy–people like us, the attractive, agreeable, or otherwise remarkable–deserve our love. But the optional, selective, conditional acceptance of the world is love’s cheap imitation, and Jesus calls us to his better way.

The Learning Curve:

1. Default Position: Some people are worthy, some are not, and I choose where to draw the line.
2. Getting Warmer: Nobody is worthy, everyone is terrible, and, truthfully, so am I.
3. Epiphany: Maybe worthiness has nothing to do it!
4. Reality: I am loved by God beyond deserving, and so is everyone else.
5. Destiny: I am love, moved under the brush of a divine painter, submitted to his cross-shaped design.

With the last step, we become our genuine selves.

The root of Christian understanding is “not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved by God, irrespective of one’s worth” (Thomas Merton).

“We love because he first loved us,” 1 John 4:19 agrees.

Love’s opposite

We are complicit with evil not when we hate evil, but when we hate people, withholding love and allowing evil to have its way.

History may well remember this era as The Age of Chronic Offense–the irrational fear of other points of view, and the will to destroy those who hold them. What’s happened to us?

I have to admit, gnawing on the wrongs done to me (and my loved ones) can easily become a daily habit. But what tastes delicious in the moment–munching the remains of another’s insults, unkindness, or cruel indifference–only poisons me.

Thomas Merton warns, “There is a proud and self-confident hate, strong and cruel, which enjoys the pleasure of hating, for it is directed outward to the unworthiness of another. But this strong and happy hate does not realize that like all hate, it destroys and consumes the self that hates, and not the object hated.”

To refuse to love, especially the unlovable, is to diminish and deny our own being.

And that is as good as any a definition of hell.

Nobody loves like you

“We have been created to love and be loved” (Mother Teresa).

And nobody else will ever–in thought, word, or humble deed–love exactly like you.

Thank you for joining us here! The Thomas Merton quotes are from New Seeds of Contemplation, a book I recommend. You can subscribe to this series by scrolling to the very bottom of this site. Next time, in An Alphabet of Life: Wisdom Learned in the Verbs: M is for Meditate.