Acts of Love

Can I love someone whom I feel is a terrible person?


After reading this article and some of the featured responses, I posted on G+:

I believe ...

If you are [insert name of religion here because ALL religions have as a basic tenet 'love each other' - without excluding anyone], it is your responsibility to love everyone, including [gays, whites, blacks, oranges, soldiers, addicts, prostitutes, lawyers, haters, everyone.].


I admit the above is difficult for me in certain respects. I have a terribly hard time loving any haters, particularly those of the Westboro Baptist Church. However, though it's a stretch for me to feel anything but animosity toward them, I still must strive to accept and achieve the statement above. It's my responsibility to love everyone, including the haters.

At the end of the article, the author suggests:

My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that’s different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even [gulp...] hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses “below” you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.

Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.

Reach your arm out and put it around them.

And then, tell them they’re all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you lovethem.

If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that’s where we’re gonna be able to do it. That’s where we’ll start.

Every. Single. Time.

But here's the thing.


I don't want to love everyone. I'm not ready to love everyone.


I wonder - could it be enough to act lovingly?


What if, when faced with someone whose hatred boils over and disgusts me, and who is speaking to me, I do pretty much nothing. I withhold reaction. I do not condemn, I do not try to convert or "fix". I just smile sadly (because how horrible it is to be so hateful) and let it go. 


Oh yes, if they were actively bullying someone else in my presence, I would feel obliged to speak up to them; however, perhaps I could do that lovingly as well. Whatever words I used, I would try to separate the bully from the bullied, and attend to the victim. That would be acting with love, wouldn't it?


I admit, there are people who, when I think of them even now, cause my lip to curl in disdain involuntarily. I'm not at a place where I could look at them, speak to them, and do what the article's author suggests.

But maybe someone else can. Maybe it's enough that I keep an open heart for those who don't set me off quite so much.

Almost as an aside, because of my spotty memory, a few years ago I found myself wondering if I'd ever bullied one of my classmates who was not a small person. So, I asked him. He told me that I was the only one in school who never made fun of him at all.

I say that not to toot my own horn. I've certainly done things I'm not happy about to people, but this gave me hope that maybe I've been a pretty tolerant and kind person through my life. Maybe I've brought some love to some people, in spite of what I've been through.

So that's all I can do, I suppose. Continue to speak out against others talking/bringing others down, strive to do no harm, myself, and lead by example.

My request, then, is for readers to smile at one more person tomorrow whom you might normally not smile at. That's an act of love, and it might be enough to start.