What is Love

Love Mistaken as Hate & Hate Mistaken as Love

Here are some more thoughts about limits, love and the intersection of our lives with each other.

Recently there was a certain owner of a certain basketball team that expressed some horrible thoughts about people of a different race. This past weekend there was a certain athlete with a particular sexual preference that got drafted by a professional team. These two events are hot buttons that have dominated the headlines over the past several weeks and months. I’m not trying to argue the nuances of either situation, I simply have an observation.

Hate in any direction is still hate, but seems to be acceptable to most us if used to defend our own position. Everyone seems to miss the hypocrisy in my fore mentioned statement. Come on, you know that most of us believe this about hate. We simply group ourselves with those that hate the way we do, and it’s an easier pill to swallow while pointing fingers together.

We see this across all cultural, social, political and religious lines. We simply dig our heels into our side of the line and get ready to attack. I have one question…What the hell are we thinking? Can hate ever bring about change, or communicate love to another human being? Most of us would answer “no” to that question, but we’d turn around and live a completely different answer.

Tony Campolo once said; “You don’t have to legitimize someone’s lifestyle in order to love them.” In my opinion, that is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard, and a simple concept that is at the core of the polarization happening to us all. We have no clue how to navigate the truth of that statement. Do we understand what this means? Here it is in simple terms; We don’t have to agree with each other to find a way to love each other. Simple right? Then why is this not happening?

It comes back to our core selfishness, and our pursuit to unabashedly pursue the contentment of our own ego. Once again, we are all connected and we can’t all just do whatever we want and go on thinking it has no impact on others. I’m desperate and you’re desperate to be loved for who we are, but we want to do this without any limits on what we can do, or what makes us happy, and that gives us the right to hate anyone who disagrees with us. Doesn’t that sound a little nuts to you?

You don’t have to legitimize someone’s lifestyle to love them. There is someone that lived this way, and I’m sorry that he gets poorly represented. The problem is he’s represented by people just like you and me that fight their ego and selfishness as much as anyone else. Jesus approached everyone with the ability to see them divorced from their lifestyle choices or opinions, and was able to communicate love to them.

Not a love that was predicated on agreeing with what they stood for, but a love that doesn’t require an entrance fee. A love that can’t be earned, and therefore isn’t deserved. A love that accepts us, and changes us at the same time. No where have I seen any love like this. Whether you think he’s real or not, it’s a great example of how to love. Just please look to him, not his followers.

I am trying so hard to navigate loving others despite our differences, as I’m sure some of you are as well. We don’t live in a culture that helps facilitate this idea so we too often fall back into the hate cycle. This just simply needs to end, and it’s going to take all of us together to end it.

Hate in any direction is still hate.