“Where is the love?”
Isn’t love
everywhere? I mean, just listen to the radio. Pick a station and see how many
songs reference love in some way. Walk down the halls of any high school and
you’ll probably see a few awkward juvenile couples rebelliously exhibiting PDA
and vowing of their “undying love” that will be shifted to another adolescent
target in a few weeks. Watch a random movie at the theater. I bet you twenty
bucks it will be slurred with sexual innuendo or at least have a kissing scene.
So where is the love? I’m not talking about the
watered-down, everyday kind of love. I’m not talking about romance either. I’m
talking about the same love that the Black Eyed Peas are campaigning for in
this slightly annoying, yet catchy song.
Types of Love
Martin Luther King Jr. explained what kind of love this is
in his sermon titled, “Loving Your Enemies.” He preaches that in the Greek language
there are three types of love: eros, philia, and agape. Eros is the romantic
love that is shared between two people who are intimately attracted to each
other.The most common love is philia- the love that we share with our friends,
our family, and people that are like us. Mr. King explained that, “On this
level, you like a person because that person likes you. You love on this level,
because you are loved. You love on this level, because there’s something about
the person you love that is likeable to you” .This is perhaps the easiest form
of love, because it is only limited to people that you naturally get along
with. The third type of love, which is the type of love that this song is all
about, is agape (pronounced uh-gaw-pay not like a grape with no “r”).
Agape is the most challenging, yet arguably the most
important form of love. An excerpt from Martin Luther King’s sermon reads:
“…agape is more than eros; agape is more than philia; agape is something of
the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that
seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would
call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on
this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because
God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God
loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.”
It amazes me that this was preached during a time where
discrimination and hate crimes were socially acceptable by most of southern
white society. It also amazes me how much this truth could change the
world if everyone was to apply agape to their lives. Can you imagine what the
world would be like if everyone loved each other regardless of whether or not
they lived the same lifestyle, believed in the same things, or looked the same
way?
Where Love Isn’t
Perhaps it is easier to see where love isn’t. The opposite
of love is hate- yet another word that seems to be used more often in society
now. Just look through your twitter feed or listen to a rap song and count how
many times you see the word “haters”. Hate, or the lack of love, causes fear
and leads to things like discrimination and lies. As the Black Eyed Peas said,
“…if you only have love for your own race then you only leave space to
discriminate and to discriminate only generates hate”. Race is not the only
criteria that people are discriminated for. Sexuality, religious beliefs, hair
color, gender, and many other characteristics that make people different are
used as reasons to be sectioned off into a particular group- some of which are
blatantly discriminated against. As Americans we should believe in majority
rule and minority rights, but I’m afraid that we get so caught up in the pride
that comes from being “right” that we overlook the basic things that every
human is entitled to.
Selfishness, vanity, and lust may not be caused by hate, but
they definitely lack any sort of meaningful love. Excessive love for one's self
leads to selfishness and vanity, and it is easy to slip into these tendencies. When we focus our love to ourselves it
distorts the way we see things. Similarly, if you look at your reflection in a
metal spoon when it is facing you, your reflection is disfigured and upside
down. However if you turn the spoon (or the focus of your love) so that it
faces outward, the reflection looks more natural and makes sense. It is when we
focus our love outward that things make more sense inward. Lust is one of the
biggest killers of love, but it is often identified as love. The biggest
example of lust in our society today is pornography. Porn has spread like a
disease to not just males, but females as well. 20% of men and 13% of women in
the U.S. admit to viewing pornography while at work and 47% of Christians have
said that porn is a big problem in the home. The Black Eyed Peas touch on this
subject in there song when they sing, “Wrong information always shown by the
media negative images is the main criteria infecting the young minds faster
than bacteria kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema.” To make it
worse, pornography is also a huge problem in teenagers. Did you know that the
average age that a child is exposed to pornography is eleven years old? The
largest consumer group of internet pornography is adolescents between the ages
of 12 and 17 and 90% of kids between the ages of 8 and 16 have seen pornography
while doing homework online. Does my
previous example about High Schools make more sense? If the movies and songs
the youth listen to are filled with pornographic images and false information
about love, then how could they possibly know how to genuinely love those
around them?
Look For Love
So where is the real love?
That is for each of us to find. Looking for love can be difficult, but it
becomes easier when we apply agape to our lives. When we try to love others
with an agape-like love our eyes are opened to the many ways that others show love.
There are three things that will help us develop the ability to love everyone
around us.
The first is to Love
Yourself. In Christian belief, the first commandment to mankind is to love
God and the second is to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The key phrase in the
second commandment is “as thyself.” How can you possibly love your neighbor if
you can’t even love yourself? I’m sure that we are all self critical and have
things that we despise about ourselves, but if we truly desire to broaden our
capacity to love we must learn to first love ourselves. Now, I’m not saying
that you should become so self absorbed that you think you are the best person
that ever lived- that leads to pride. What I am saying is that in order for you
to truly and sincerely see the lovable things in others, you must first be able
to see them in yourself. Once you accomplish this, it will be so much easier to
love those aroun
d you.
Second, Separate
People From Their Actions. Ever heard of the phrase, “Love the sinner hate
the sin?” It is true that a person’s actions determine who they become.
However, in order to have an agape-like
love for someone, we must focus on who they are as a person even if we don’t
agree with what they do. The children’s book You Are Special, by Max
Lucado, tells a story of a wemmick named Punchinello. He lives in a town with
other wemmicks who go around putting stickers on each other all day. The “good”
wemmicks get stars, while the “bad” or ugly wemmicks get ugly grey dots. In
this story, Punchinello gets discouraged because he is only branded with dots.
Then, he meets a wemmick who doesn’t have any stickers at all- she doesn’t have
any stars or dots. Astonished, Punchinello asks her how she doesn’t have any
dots and she replies, “I don’t let them stick.” Why do we sometimes brand
people with “stickers” just as the wemmicks did in Lucado’s book? If we were to
take away the labels that we give people, I think that we would all be
astonished at how much we really are alike. As we strive to see people as they are-
without the brands or the stickers that we or others have placed on them- our
capacity to love them will increase drastically.
And finally, you must Allow
Yourself to Be Vulnerable. Vulnerability, much like a rollercoaster, is
absolutely terrifying but can be one of the most exhilarating things a person
can experience. No one explains what it’s like to be vulnerable better than the
one and only Bob Marley.
"You open your heart knowing that there’s a
chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a
love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is
the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares
you."
The truth is, in order to experience what real love and joy
feels like we have to experience what deep sorrow, regret, and pain feels like
as well. Without vulnerability these emotions are impossible to experience. In
order to find that true happiness that comes from loving those around us, we
must take risks that make us vulnerable. Sometimes those risks will cause pain
and embarrassment, but I personally believe that it is the risks we take that
give sustenance to our character. Yes it
is scary. Yes it takes a lot of courage. But yes, it is worth it.
In
the words of Clint Black, "love isn't something that we have... love
isn't something that we find... love isn't someplace that we're at, it's
something that we do." Action is a big aspect to finding love. We show
our love for others by serving them and we have to act in order to find
or see the love that others have for us. Let us all go do a
little more to show our love, and as we practice having an agape-like
love it will eventually become a habit. Let's listen to the Black Eyed
Peas when they invite us all to "let [our souls] gravitate to the love."
As we do, we will feel more happiness and gratitude than we could any
other way.
Have a good weekend!
-Kim
