I keep being told that people aren't animals. But sometimes I wish they were. Then they'd be easier to love.
You see, for me, when a dog or a cat comes in the room, there's this part of me that immediately opens up and longs to embrace it. I accept it in spite of all its breed faults, hair-shedding and tendencies to scratch you when you're trying to give it a cuddle. Anytime I'm bitten or growled at, I brush it off and say it must've been my fault and that I had it coming to me.
But if a person were to do this to me, I wouldn't love it half so much, no matter what the Bible says. I keep praying that God will open my eyes and teach me to love unconditionally. But it's not working.
That is, until perhaps, today.
I was reading "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. He's more of a cynic than me which wasn't working at the start, but now, I think we have more of an understanding. I sit through his elaborate analogies of why church sucks and how twisted Christianity has become because I realize that part of me thinks that too. And his world didn't cave in despite still believing in God. And so mine shouldn't either.
Today, I finished the chapter on Love. Miller writes about how he heard someone talking about analogies and how analogies change our perception of things. Like when we talk about relationships, we tend to use words like "value", "worth" and "bankrupt". Economic terms, in short. And that makes us think that love is a commodity that needs to spent lavishly in some areas and scrupulously in others. Perhaps even stingily. We use love like we use money. And the last time I saw, most of us aren't using money too wisely either. So our world is kind of messed up.
To be honest, I still think that if everyone was a dog, I'd still love them easier than if I started not thinking about love as a commodity. But what I did learn today was that others are struggling with this concept of "unconditional love". And that while it is insane, it isn't impossible.
Miller goes on to say that when he realized how much of a warped idea he had about love, his heart suddenly opened and he flipped that switch. It may sound like something that puts more pressure on you, when you realize just how unloving you are, but for him, he talks about it as a very liberating thing. For once, he didn't have to pretend to like people, and that, I can imagine, was a big load of his shoulders. Do you know how hard it is to pretend to like someone? Or, even if you're just the honest kind, to have people you straight out don't like? I'd rather just like them for real.
Time to put that in practice.
