What I Have Come to Believe About Love.

I really think that most of my life I have been a "romantic". Romanticism is a child-like belief in "love". Love conquers all. All the world needs now is "love sweet love". Love will make everything all right. If one just learns to love enough, then others will love in return. These are childish imaginings, built on a childish hope for "peace and goodwill to all men"..l

I have come to understand that "love" is not the exchange rate of life in this world and humans don't Love unless they know. Love is a personal word, unlike justice.

Justice is an aspect of love that seeks equality under law, respect, dignity, and value to all people. Justice is blind to difference, because difference in race, religion or "creed of life" are not evaluated in "justice's eyes". Justice is what anyone seeks for "self" and what we need to seek for others. But, justice is measured by law, as laws define and protect justice. Love fulfills the law, because love will not break the law in regards to another's difference of value or choice. Justice is moral because it seeks to give freedom for choice.

While justice is the side to love that is universal, mercy is the side that is personal. Mercy is shown in tangible ways to those whose needs vary. Mercy is not blind, as it sees clearly what the needs are and seeks to meet them. Mercy gives freedom, because it respects another's need for dignity in private moments of despair and discouragement. Mercy reaches out. but doesn't demand to serve or demean in service. Mercy is respectful.

Love is not romanticized in these values of justice or mercy. Justice and mercy seek to alleviate pain, benefit the whole and rectify the wrong.

While I have given up hope for romanticized love, in happily ever afters, as there are no "ever afters". I haven't given up on justice or mercy. While mercy doesn't appeal to me as much now, as justice once didn't in the past, I have come to understand and appreciate justice above all, as I have understood the importance of distinctions, values, and the history of our country. I have become fascinated by things that once were cold hard facts. Now, I live and love history.

I am grateful for my country and the values of freedom and justice for all, as I believe these are values that all people should experience, but most do not. I am so grateful to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that seeks to rectify the differences of experiencing freedom and justice for all.

Suicide, the Market, the Eigth Commandment, and Human Value

While waitng for my husband to come our from his office this morning, I heard on the news that a woman had attempted to take her life. The reason was blamed on the market. Anaylsis was given that the woman "had other problems" besides her mortgage.

Just this morning I couldn't sleep, so I decided to get up and write on my blog. The subject was on suicide and human value. In that entry I argued that life's meaning was given within the context of community and when the social structures do not affirm the life, there can be the response of suicide. Suicide is not done within an isolated context, but an incident that illustrates what has happened over a lifetime. It's "speech/act" is of a de-valued life.

This morning"s sermon was on the Eigth Commandment, "thou shalt not steal". In the sermon, my pastor argued that the OT's boundaries were different from the NT's. The Old Testament regards the boundaries of self and other. He argued that the Sermon on the Mount asked us to "give all" without any regard for "self" in how, or what was required. In fact, if we do not give, we are stealing, in effect, for all things belong to God. While I agree with this in premise, I wondered to myself, and this was before hearing of this woman's suicide, how in disregarding another's improper behavior toward you would enlarge the "greater good"? Wouldn't it only empower evil? and make a statement to the guilty that there needs to be no guilt? My pastor went on to make an illustration of a burglary he had experienced, where this young man broke into his house on four occassions. Wouldn't it be appropriate to get him help? And wouldn't part of the help be reabilitation for his behavior?

Nations certainly don't maintain the NT's standard of "turning the other cheek", unless one adheres to pacifism. I find that the "ideal" of the Sermon on the Mount is just that "ideal" in an imperfect world. Idealism is impractical. What I really think my pastor meant and what I believe the Sermon on the Mount means is that possessions should not "own us". That means we are not making decisions based solel y on the market. But, that does not mean that we do not consider the market, otherwise there is no justice in our form of government. Justice is not what the Sermon on the Mount is about, but mercy. And certainly, my pastor was not asking us to disregard justice.

What does my blog's early morning entry, the woman's suicide, and my pastor's sermon have in common? A person's value....A person's value is worth more than the money he makes or has, and yet, if the community, state, nation, condones market values on life, then my pastor's sermon becomes an absurdity to the individual whose life has been weighed and measured by those standards and not loved and embraced as an individual.

I wonder if the woman who attempted to take her life, was only acting out what society's message to her was in the first place?

Culture, Tradition and Difference

In our multicultural world, it is unacceptable to be prejuidiced. So, we struggle to identify where our prejuidices are and when they raise their "ugly heads", we submerge them in a "sea of denial". Why don't we sift our prejuidices for "gems of reality" and underpinning of value(s)?

Whenever one has suffered at the hands of intolerance, there are two wrong possible responses. While both are submerged in a mass of pain and humiliation, one circumvents a full development of reason in the name of tolerance, while the other response becomes just as hostile and intolerant as ther perpetuators. Fear is the root of both. While the merciful want nothing to do with intolerance, the just want nothing to do with tolerance. There is no moderation and rationale of emotion.

Culture is the environment of a location or a group. The culture of prejuidice defines that culture by it boundaries created by the laws and rules that shape that culture. Prejuidice is not necessarily wrong in these instances, for it is only in definition that the group or culture can identify itself from another. Humanity, undefined, cannot be embraced for it is only in the specified that another understands and can embrace with knowledge. Knowledge is a necessary component of love.

While love does embrace, it at the same time does not have to condone all aspects of another's life. We can love and be prejuidiced. We can embrace and reject. The values that the individual holds represents the goals of his/her life. Bring these goals to the fore and allow the values to take care of themselves.