Advent Week Three: Love
By: Aj Spellman
Tags: Compassion, Spirituality, Advent, Social Justice, Love

Image credit: RedHeadsRule.

Sources seem to disagree about the theme of this week. Some of the topics I’ve seen range from love, to joy, the arts, and preparation. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is also known in some traditions as Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” is from the Latin for “rejoice”. It is the first word in the Latin Gregorian chant that begins the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for this Sunday of the church year.

While all that linguistic and traditional history is interesting (to me, at least), it’s not where I’ve been trying to go with this series. It’s not the same to reflect or build the spirit from the standpoint of linguistic and liturgical history. Not usually, anyway.

So, I’m opting to write about love this week, because I think I have a perspective that some may find interesting.

Love. There are so many directions to take with this topic. There is love that exists interpersonally, and towards humanity. There is love for animals, nature, objects. Humans have an endless capacity to love.

We all know that most humans don’t fulfill that capacity for love nearly enough, and I’m sure those of you reading my reflections agree with me in wishing more chose the loving path. It often makes me angry to think about how many choose the path of hate, as I imagine it does many of you. It’s natural, as empathetic people, to feel angry when we see people negatively affected by another’s chosen hatred. It’s a righteous anger.

Being angry for the right reasons is not negativity. Jesus was angry. Society was not just, and it was using God and religion as an excuse for injustice. This is illustrated perhaps no better than the well known story with the moneychangers in the temple. Also in the “Woes of the Pharisees”, a list of criticisms of hypocrisy that Jesus lodged against the Pharisees, the religious authority of the time.

St. Brigid was not immune to anger, either. It is well known that much of what is claimed as Irish lore is not historically accurate, but taken as a fable, there is a lesson in a famous story about Brigid and two lepers:

“Another time, two lepers came to be healed, and Bridget ordered one of them to wash the other; which he did, and the man was healed.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘do to your comrade as he has done to you; wash him with water that he may be made clean of his leprosy.’

‘Oh, veiled woman,’ he answered, ‘why should I, that am clean now in body and limb, touch this filthy leper of the blue-grey skin? Ask me not to do this thing.’

Then Bridget took water and washed the leper herself. Immediately the other who had been healed, cried out, ‘A fire is raging under my skin;’ and the disease came again on him worse than ever. Thus was he punished for his pride.” (Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, Volume 2, Wilde.)

Love, with the power to heal, combined with the anger at an unjust, selfish action… This is something many of us can probably relate to right now in the United States, when we hear people say things such as, “High risk people should just stay home if they are scared,” or, “I’m going to live my life, you can’t stop me!” Meanwhile, we know full well that person is likely to get someone sick, or perhaps end a life. We also know very well what kinds of sacrifices our healthcare workers are making to comfort the dying and heal the sick.

Still, being angry all the time — even righteously so — isn’t healthy. Plus, this is an article about love, so how did we get here?

If you’ve been reading my Advent series, you know by now that my spirituality is inextricably intertwined with the duty of social justice. It’s always been a part of my service to my spiritual mother Brighid, as well as the rest of my spiritual family. Love as justice is how I reconcile righteous anger with love.

Even though righteous anger is love, we can’t spend all of our time angry. That would compromise our ability to function, much less be effective in the fight for justice. Much like radical peace, love goes hand in hand with radical compassion. This includes radical compassion for ourselves. So, we are angry. Okay. Sit with it. Explore that feeling. All too often we run from feelings that are uncomfortable, when it’s sitting in the discomfort that promotes the greatest growth.

“Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.” (The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, Chödrön.)

We need to love ourselves enough to direct that compassion towards ourselves when we are afraid and angry. All too often we encourage others to feel what we suppress within ourselves.

Once we are able to show ourselves this level of love, it’s less scary when we turn love outwards.

One of my weak spots is evaluating the worth of the love I attempt to give based on the reaction it gets. A gift of compassion I have been working on giving to myself (and it is very much a work in progress) is to try to internalize that my responsibility in the world within this context is to put love out into the world. That’s it. How it is received is neither my fault, nor my business. If I go out of my way to reach out or be kind and I am rebuffed, I did nothing wrong.

Once I understood that it was my job to put love and kindness out there, and that’s where my responsibility ended, it was a load off of my shoulders.

Like I said, this is within a specific context. I’m not encouraging anyone to harass anyone else, okay? We may have a duty to put love into the world, but we shouldn’t be chasing people around who don’t want it. That’s just disrespecting boundaries and wasting a bunch of our own energy.

It should go without saying that if someone shows you they don’t want to interact with you, that boundary should be respected every bit as much as you would want your own to be respected. Even if it hurts, it will be better for you in the long run to disengage from people who aren’t fully invested in having your presence in their lives, anyway.

It is part of our spiritual obligation to be vessels of love. That sounds fluffy, but the love I am talking about is not cotton candy. It’s gritty; it’s righteous anger. It’s putting effort towards social justice. It’s speaking up for the injured even when it feels scary.

It’s when it’s difficult to love, but you step up anyway.

It’s having the courage to stand up and speak love to ourselves and each other through every action we take while we are on this planet. Holding space for love is not always pretty, and compassion is not always nice. But it is through these actions that we ignite the fire of our spirit to have the courage to live love in this world.

Living love courageously in our world will change it. I can promise you that, even if you can’t see the ripple effect your actions will have. Think of at least one time someone was compassionate towards you and you didn’t have the opportunity or ability to show them the difference they made. Those who heed the call to have the courage to give compassion and love will make a difference in this world that needs love so very badly.

Blessings to you this Advent season.