The Color of Love…

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

(Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches)

A while back I came across this quotation: "Everyone needs to be loved especially when they don't deserve it." At first glance it seems a graceful offering of wisdom, however, listen a bit more carefully to the oxymoron embedded in the text. It is this - the words "love" and "deserve" do not sit well together.

This reminds me of a story that I came across years ago about an impoverished family living in the Bronx, New York. A single-parent family, the mother worked long hours to provide food and shelter for her children. Though times were tough they managed to stay together, stay in school and, mostly, to stay out of trouble. The youngest though, was more deeply broken by their circumstances than his siblings, and tended to express his pain through rebellion and lashing out. Now, mother had skimped and saved a few dollars here and there over the years and had a small nest-egg put away in a tin to help send one of the children to college. The youngest found the stash, stole it and spent it on a gun and drugs. He was arrested...

An older sister raged to their mother, "I hate him. I hate him for what he did, for what he has taken from us - your hard work, our dreams. I just hate him." With tears in her eyes, this life-worn, thread-bare mom responded to her daughter, "Don't hate him baby. it is when we are most difficult to love that we need to be loved the most. When we are completely lost we need love to come find us. Don't hate him, love him back to us."

“Love - not dim and blind

but so far-seeing that it can glimpse around corners,

around bends and twists and illusion;

instead of overlooking faults,

love sees through them to the secret inside.” 

(Vera Nazarian, Salt of the Air)

I've heard it often enough in our society - he/she deserves what they get. I've seen it in the Alberta redneck culture; if someone is an arsehole they deserve to be treated like an arsehole. There seems to be a certain karmic logic to this; Jesus said, we reap what we sow. Problem is, Love is all about healing and renewal, life and laughter. The person that we write-off as useless is a gifted human being that has not realized their own worth. Living the Love that we are means, in part, that we search for and draw out the Love that is within others, without regard to any sense of worthiness.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you

and still loves you.” 

(Elbert Hubbard)

Love does not discriminate between the deserving, or the undeserving. Love - the immense, indescribable power that called the universe into existence, that holds the planets in their orbits, that causes sunshine to sparkle on ocean waves like the glimmer of a million diamonds - this Love heals hearts, erupts as laughter in children, delights in the soaring eagle, the playful dolphins, the joy of first-time parents. This immense Love surrounds and fills all that is, all the time. This awesome power that is Love seeks out and soaks into the most vile offender with the same passion and yearning as it does the most enlightened saint.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” 

(Lao Tzu)

There is a temptation to commodify love, to offer it to the most deserving, those easiest to love. What we would be giving then would not be pure Love, but rather a shallow and poor forgery that seeps from the wounded ego. This love impostor is powerless to make a healing change in our world, is impotent as a life-giving agent, and can in no way draw our hearts into deeper life. But Love, pure, flowing through us, this Love - this makes a difference. 

Wherever you work today, wherever your path takes you, try this out: instead of giving what is "deserved," offer from your heart what is needed. In so doing you will be an agent of healing, a part of the renewal of our world. 

I leave the last word to Paul:

"Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast,

it is not proud.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,

it is not easily angered,

it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts,

always hopes,

always perseveres."

(1 Corinthians 13)

The color of Love...

seeking the lost.

Love

erodes us

until

we 

are only

itself

Be

the Love

that

You are

Breathe

Pray

Laugh

To Ponder Further:

- From the Bible: "God is love." (1 John 4.8)

- From Hinduism: "To love is to know Me, My innermost nature, The truth that I am." (Bhagavad Gita 18.55)

- From Unification Church: "What is God? God is an existence that absolutely lives for others." (Sun Myung Moon, 4-16-88)