Love Is…
As many of you know, I missed the opportunity to be in the pulpit with you this past Sunday. A debt of gratitude for those that carried on in my absence. At the current moment, I am the only person in my house not to have contracted covid. It has given me a new appreciation for my immune system that I have thought was weak my whole life. Nancy has graciously given me the opportunity to tweak the sermon I had prepared into a blog post for you.
I love….tacos. I mean, you can take a tortilla, hard or soft, and shove it full of anything and call it a taco. The options are endless. My favorite are street tacos. With a few simple ingredients, well prepared, on a tiny tortilla, you have a punch of flavor. Given how small they are, you can experience a variety of flavor combinations by eating 3, 4, 5, 6…
It’s no secret to many of you that I love coffee. Most don’t understand the true depth of love I have for the beverage. Coffee can have a wide range of flavor profiles based on endless variables from farm to cup. The pit of a cherry from a tree in Ethiopia (the birthplace of coffee) has developed into a worldwide beverage where over 2.25 billion cups are consumed everyday. Because of this, coffee is the great equalizer in society. From the $1 cup of McCafe to the $4-5 pour-over of anaerobic processed AA, we all drink it. Walk into a coffee shop and find the CEO and the person experiencing homelessness who gets a free cup a day sitting side by side.
The ocean is the one place on earth that I am able to re-ground myself when life gets overly chaotic. My love for crashing waves and the expansiveness of this beauty cannot be described in words, even though I have tried numerous times.
I love my children. When Samuel (my oldest) was born, I wept uncontrollably when I held him in my arms the first time. My heart burst wide open and I experienced a love I had never known. The births of my second and third children were equally impactful in different ways.
I love this community of people. Most days, I think this community is doing far more for me than I am for you.
I love youth ministry. I have loved it for 17 years. I have had the opportunity to walk alongside youth in some of the most meaningful ways and see them become some of the most wonderful people.
There is a magical place on South street that delights my soul every time I go. Boulted bread makes some of the best baked goods and the people are some of the most gentle and welcoming people in Raleigh. I love that place.
A Place at the Table has served this community for 4 years now providing a pay-what-you-can model for anyone that walks in the door. As often as I can, I stop by to give Maggie a hug and grab some food. I love what they do.
I have witnessed love.
There was this couple at the park one day. I would guess they were in their 80’s. They were holding hands and smiling at one another while eating their picnic lunch. The look on their faces was priceless.
Recently, I saw a video of a man who attacked another man on the subway platform in NYC. When the attacker lunged at another man, he ended up falling off of the platform, down onto the tracks. The man who had just been attacked lept into action to pull his attacker back onto the platform before a train took his life.
When I came on staff in 2017, everyone was welcoming and loving of this recent convert from political and theological conservatism. Brian Crisp, who we said our farewells to on Sunday, was the most motherly figure to me. Even when I said some asinine things, he responded from a place of love. To think, a man like me, who only 4-5 years prior had condemned people like him, was being shown unrestricted love as I found my feet here.
Recently, I was putting the kids to bed. Campbell is on the top bunk so I stood on Silas’ railing to give her a hug and kiss one more time. She asked me a question that I do not recall what it was. I answered. I watched her face soften, a slight grin come across her face and her eyes looked deep into my soul. In those silent moments, I felt more love from her than I have ever felt in her short life.
The english language can be so limiting.
Ancient Greek, in which the New Testament was written, has about six different words that speak to the nuances of love. Hebrew has at least three. Spanish has two with various forms of those. French has a plethora of ways to express love.
I could go on but I won’t. Here we are, stuck with the english language. We have one word. Love. We rely on the inflection of our voice or an intensifier to try to give us some varied experiences.
So, it is my contention that love is…complicated.
And we try to explain this complicated english word to our children who, by the way, first learn what love is from us, their parents. They equate the “I love you” they hear to the actions they experience. It’s no wonder there are so many of us who stay in mentally, emotionally, and/or physically abusive relationships because “that’s what love is”. Right? So all of us come to this place today with our own notions of what love looks like.
Love is…complicated.
My second contention is that I believe many of us have forgotten how to love.
On a recent road trip to do some winter camping, we saw a billboard with a message “from God”. It read “That whole love your neighbor thing…yea, I meant that”. I believe we have forgotten how to love our neighbor and we have forgotten that everyone is our neighbor. Now let me say this. We are tired. Two years of a pandemic has taken a toll on all of us. We have lost patience. Many of us feel like we are at the end of our ropes. Yet, I believe this forgetfulness originates from much longer than two years ago. We are all running around operating from our traumatized state, (sometimes) pretending to love our neighbor but what is it to love your neighbor?
Our text from this past Sunday (1 Corinthians 13) lays out what love is and I invite you to slowly let this sink in. Read slowly. Pause after every phrase.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
I searched the internet trying to find the right person to attribute a quote I heard. With no avail, I will say that I believe it was Brené Brown but I could be wrong. She says “The one question we are all asking is ‘will you love me?’”
When your children are testing your boundaries and limitations, at the root they are asking “will you still love me?”
When your teenager chooses a new identity every week, they are trying to find what fits them and asking the question of everyone around them “will you love me?”
Family, loved ones, the woman behind the register, your enemies, you. We all just want to know if we can be loved. No matter our beliefs, our religious identification, our gender or sexuality, our quirks, our dark secrets, bad habits, or wildly unbelievable conspiracy theories. Can we be loved?
I have learned to look at my children when their actions do not meet who they are and, instead of scolding them, affirm who they really are as kind and loving humans. THEN, explain how that was not a kind and loving action. I’ve learned to speak into existence who they are.
I have learned that a curious demeanor with teenagers goes a long way. That giving them space to experience the full range of human emotion and find themselves…matters.
As my grandmother would say, you can attract a lot more flies with honey than you can vinegar.
I’m sure many of you are with me at this point but I’ll try to push the edge now. What about the person or organization working hard for justice in a different way than you are? Or even further, are you capable of responding from a place of love to the religious and political conservative? Can you be patient, kind, not envious or boastful? Can you lay aside the arrogance and rudeness? Can you stop insisting that your way is the only way? Can you be calm and not resent? Can you rejoice when justice serves you and them? Can you believe in that person, hope for that person, and endure the journey with that person?
From the same speech Nancy referenced in her sermon a few weeks ago, The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr says:
“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
-A Time to Break the Silence
Love is…complicated. When the opposition in question has relentlessly attacked the very fibers of our being, responding from a place of love seems an insurmountable task. Your anger is valid. Let me say that again. Your anger is valid. It is an emotion that, when ignored, will eat away at you. It should be acknowledged so that you can respond from a place of love. It is a daily act of intention that will move us forward in our journey. Slowing down, self-reflection, mantras that remind us we are all children of the divine.
Standing on opposite sides of the street, operating from a place of trauma, hurling insults at one another only keeps the cycle of violence going. Redemptive violence is a myth and in a culture where violence thrives, it is an act of pure rebellion to respond from a place of love.
Shalom my friends
