love one another

Community, any community, has norms and standards, and rules. That’s how it manages to stay together as a community. This is part of who we are, this is how we work. We all struggle with this, and some of us rile against, and some of us rise against. Not all of those norms, standards and rules are positive and healthy. They can become exclusionary and divisive, setting up uneven balances of power and lack of care for one another. People are pushed to the fringes, some are pushed beyond, and there is emphasis on what is right and wrong and acceptable and unacceptable in a way that ultimately comes to fear as a motivator.
I’ve probably said this before, but fear is the biggest motivator – it gets people to do all kinds of stupid things. Fear of a myriad of different things, but fear nonetheless. The worst though, is the lengths to which we as humans will go to avoid being uncomfortable, for fear of being uncomfortable. Faced with death, we often find ourselves rising to the challenge / occasion and break out of our norms and are able to do extraordinary things. But faced with the fear of being uncomfortable, we take the path of least resistance.
Somebody on the street, known or unknown, a conversation we might not want to have – hope they don’t see us, we ignore them, eyes averted, or turn around and walk away. Or, a problem that needs to be addressed, all it takes is a few words to get the conversation started, but it is “too uncomfortable” and so the words are not said, the problem is allowed to continue and it is either status quo or it gets worse.
So, love. Love for each other takes us from that place of fear and the status quo and challenges us. Love has us face death, all the time, so that we rise to the challenge and occasion all the time. Love has us speak to that person we would avoid. Love has us make those conversations that are uncomfortable. Love has us do that, and much more. Love as a starting point helps us define or redefine those norms, standards and rules so that we are inclusive and not pushing people away. So that power is not unbalanced, so that fear is not a motivator, so that people are not divided.
I don’t mean this in some sort of naive utopian sort of way, because people are people and we make mistakes and there are problems and not everyone gets along all the time. The real difference, I think, is that when love becomes our starting / motivating point for actions, then we approach those problems and difficulties differently. It is way easier to say than do all this. But that is also part of the beauty of it – the challenge that it presents us with keeps us growing, and not stuck in a status quo place – it keeps us alive and living.
A very wise man said – “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”