Spreading Love

On Sunday of a weekend, which began with reports of the simultaneous and horrendous attacks in Paris, I am still digesting and attempting to make sense of the world in which we live.  My friend and frequent contributor to this blog, Amy Frost, texted me on Saturday, "I pray this will evoke people to stand up and do what they can to create a loving world."

In a similar vein, a survivor of the concert attacks, interviewed on the BBC, said that he heard many evoking revenge, but continued, "When I thought I was about to die, what I thought about was those I love.  It is love we should be spreading," he said.

For almost 30 years, I've been writing about the love that connects us all and how it its the duty of all of us to keep that connection alive, vital, healthy, and flowing.  I still believe that to be true.  And, increasingly, I've struggled with what that means exactly.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see the newly released movie, "Suffragette."  Unfolding on the screen in front of me were extremely difficult scenes of ordinary women, attempting to listen to a speaker who was advocating for giving women the vote. They were brutally beaten and jailed, just for association, assembly, and listening.  One woman is kicked out of her home by her husband and loses her son.

"Suffragette" was set in Britain, but similar scenes played out in the US as women attempted to get basic rights. In the US it was common to send women to mental institutions because, of course if they wanted the vote, they must be mentally ill.  Here, too, women lost their children. Could that evil have been confronted by love?  I'd like to think so, but given the brutality, I am doubtful.

Last Wednesday much of the world marked "Veterans Day" or "Armistice Day," observed on the date of the end of World War I, but generally recognizing all those who had served in foreign wars. Most often, speakers use language about those who made "the ultimate sacrifice" while fighting for the freedom we hold dear.  I can't imagine anyone advocating that we should have taken on Hitler with love instead of bombs.  Even I, a devout pacifist since I was 19, cannot conceive that would have worked.

In 2001, I was an advocate that instead of dropping bombs, we should spend the same money dropping packages of food, books, and other gifts into an impoverished Afghanistan.  We will never know if that would have produced more favorable outcomes, but that surely would have been a closer to a love response to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Yet the warfare response has certainly not produced the results for which we had hoped either. I am no longer ready to suggest that I think dropping groceries on Afghanistan would have brought either the Taliban or bin Laden down.

Muddying the waters still further are the consequences of our wars.  We see our Wounded Warriors come home absent limbs and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) but this is nothing new.  How many Civil War veterans came home without an arm or leg?  What we call PTSD now was called "Shell Shock" in World War I.  My grandfather spent 20 years in a mental institution in a catatonic state as a result of his service.  I would love to have had a present grandfather instead.

Can the world really be dominated by love if we don't weed out evil?  Having come from the Christian tradition, I can't forget that even Jesus, often described as the Prince of Love, violently turned over the tables in the temple to weed out evil.  A friend, who knew him, told of how she once saw the Maharishi Maresh Yogi exploding angrily--once.  Clearly these men of peace and love understood that there was a time and place for anger, rather than love.  But, just when is that time and place?  So, I struggle.

I started this blog with the hope that by wrestling with the difficult issues that, if we faced them on a heart and love level, the answers would be clear.  However, as I write more about both personal and universal dichotomies, I become more aware that those crystal clear, right-as-rain love answers just aren't always there.  As I seek the Truth, the answer I often find is to listen deeply to our hearts to what the appropriate response is in each situation, rather than having a go-to automatic response.

With somewhat regret I say that while I hate violence was required, I am glad the suffragettes responded to brutality with violence, and I am glad that our world is without Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden.  In the end, the Truth seems to be in the wrestling.