Loving: simple things.

Image by Circe Denyer from Pixabay

Easter 5C - Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35

It’s been said that “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”¹ I am not so sure, and I worry that the sentiment can scare us away from taking Jesus’ words – “Love one another” -- to heart.

I have been reading Tattoos on the Heart by Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle, the founder of a gang-intervention program in Los Angeles called Homeboy Industries. I recommend the audiobook. Boyle narrates it himself and he is a delightful storyteller. It’s a pleasure to hear his voice, his imitation of the other characters and his evident love for “the homies.”

I only listen for a few minutes each day because even though each story brings laughter, it also brings tears. The lives of the homies are harsh and dreadful. The tears come with the awareness of how deep, deep pain can be reached and helped by the simplest of words or gestures.

Perhaps you already know that.

For Boyle, loving starts with the gift of his attention, remembering a preferred name, a meal or the willingness to answer the phone at 3 a.m. Simple things.

When it gets challenging, Boyle goes back to his “touchstone image of God”: An adoring mother who is so lovingly enthralled with the sight of her children -- each of us -- that she has no time to raise an eyebrow in disapproval. Boyle invites us to see ourselves and one another as objects of that adoration.

Life can be harsh and dreadful, but love is about simple things. If we forget that, we make it difficult and joyless. Loving is about doing what we can with what we have and who we are.

In a world where Black, immigrant, trans, queer and women’s lives officially no longer matter, life will become even more harsh and dreadful. Loving may mean standing with others in ways and places that are unfamiliar to us. We can do that because we are not alone, and because love is about doing what we can with what we have and who we are.

And we ought not to underestimate who we are. What we have. And what we can do.

On the night of the Last Supper, after sharing that meal with his disciples, Jesus said, “Love one another the way I have loved you.”

We can do that.

Peace.

1. Said by Father Zosima in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.