I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
—Mother Teresa
By the time you read this, some 200,000 people in Haiti will have been buried, their bodies crushed by an earthquake in a land already devastated by hunger, lack of education, and political unrest.
Some who call themselves representatives of God would have us believe that the devastation is punishment for past evils.
I think that kind of thinking is, in itself, evil.
Because if we truly believe ourselves made in the image of a greater Goodness, then we can only view the devastation as a call to arms — loving arms ready and willing to embrace the poor, the weak, the injured.
A few days after the Haitian quake, a colleague of mine asked why we as a nation should continue to send money, food and volunteers to far off lands when we don’t receive any kind of “thanks” in return.
I suppose it is the same reason we parents should continue to love our children even when they say they hate us:
We simply cannot imagine a world in which we would do any differently.
Or, perhaps, some can — but we should never let those people call the shots.
Love isn’t something about which we should be stingy, picking and choosing the recipients based on what we’ll get in return. Mother Teresa was right: if we love so hard it hurts, we will erase all hurt and discover only more love.
Being open to this kind of love, much less practicing it, is by no means easy. If it were, we wouldn’t have people looking for imagined evils rather than opportunities for grace. We are not the first to wrestle with the difficulty of loving those we’d rather ignore. Throughout human history, religious figures, philosophers, and the humble have had to urge us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The golden rule may be a rich sentiment, but it is also ephemeral.
To compensate, we pay lip service to true love. We extol its virtues, praise its poetry…and pretty much ignore everything else. But as St. Paul once noted: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
This Valentine’s day, don’t be a cymbal — be a symbol.
Delve deeply into yourself and think about the kind of world you want for your children. If that world is one filled with love, then you must be the one to create it by reaching out and loving until it hurts. Show your children that love doesn’t grow until you give it away — yes, even to those you do not know, or perhaps even like.
Now is our moment to rise up to the challenge love presents. We must be strong in the face of those who would diminish our capacity to love, who would turn our heads from its beauty by pointing out ugliness. We must remember that love is, as St. Paul famously wrote, patient and kind — and does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.
And the truth of it is, as French writer Jean Anouilh once said, “Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”
Give of yourself until it hurts — only then will there be no more hurt.
Only love.
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