Love One Another?

A personal essay by Breeze Davis

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” -Matthew 5:44 (KJV)

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Over the last year or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to “love one another.” I will freely admit that I am not the poster-child for loving people easily, though I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish I was. For me, it’s hard to find a balance between loving people without letting them drag me down, or loving people despite their seemingly intentional attempts to upset me. I have been feeling a great need to find this balance in my own life. I want to love better. But how?

Everyone is Doing the Best They Can

I was raised by the perfect example of what it looks like to love other people effortlessly. My mother is the epitome of patience, love, and kindness. She is a rescuer of the lost, and an ally to the lonely. She lives by the mantra: “just assume everyone is doing the best they can.”As many times as I’ve heard her say those words to me, it’s always been difficult to remember it in the moments I need it most.

My mom has had her work cut out for her, having me as a daughter. For 22 years now, she has endured my never ending list of complaints about people who “plague” my life in one way or another. While she has her mantra, I have my own:

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In all seriousness, I always wished I could be more like my mother. I was frustrated that she gave birth to me and didn’t include the more compassionate bits of herself in my genetic makeup. I still am a little frustrated by that, if I’m being honest. Even so, I’m grateful to have her to look to as an example, though she is no longer the only person who has inspired my desire to love people better.

We're All Looking For the Same Thing

My friend Sevanna is really good at loving people where they are, too. She is kind to everyone, she accepts everyone, she will be friends with anyone-- sometimes to a fault, in my opinion. In the past I have often found myself trying to figure out how she does it. How does she stand firm in who she is, yet still actively associate with people who don’t live the same way she does? How does she look past all of the worst parts of a person and love them anyway-- or even love them for their imperfections. How does she do it?

Towards the end of my sophomore year of college, I had a conversation with Sevanna that I will never forget. I was expressing to her some frustrations that I was having with a person in our friend group. I’m not really sure how I was expecting her to respond, but her answer surprised me none-the-less. She said something along the lines of:

Photo by Tim Marshall

“Everybody is looking for the exact same thing. No matter who you are, all a person wants is to be loved, to have friends, and to feel included and valued. Some people show it differently-- and for some, their version of ‘showing it’ may come off as annoying, or attention-seeking, or even mean, but at the end of the day we just have to take everything people do and say with a grain of salt and remember that all they want is to be loved, just as much as any of the rest of us want it.”

Embarrassingly enough, what she said was a foreign concept to me, but it made a lot of sense. Even though I now understood something that I didn’t before, it didn’t make it any easier to live by it, unfortunately.

Love is a Verb

Surely I can relate to a person who is in search of love and friendship, and surely I know what it’s like for my “best” to not seem good enough, so why can’t I use my personal experiences to love others better? Why can’t I show grace for people in areas that I wished people had shown grace for me?

Arthur C. Brooks, in his book Love Your Enemies, speaks of a standard of love in which we “listen to our hearts, of course. But also...think clearly, look at the facts, and do difficult things when necessary, so that we can truly lift people up and bring them together” (page 13).

This idea of love being something a little more active than one might think helps make a little sense of how Sevanna and my mom love the way that they love. It reminds me that loving other people requires effort, even if it seems to come more easily to some than others. Even I can learn to love the way that they love, and that is comforting.

Love Your Enemies?

In the first semester of my Junior year of college, just a few months from when I had that unforgettable talk with Sevanna, I was put in a very difficult position socially-- one that greatly tested my capacity to love.

There was a guy, who I will call Peter, and he was definitely not my favorite person. Peter was brought into our social circle by none other than Sevanna, who unsurprisingly saw good in him where I saw almost none.

I never wanted to hang around him because everytime I did, I came home feeling icky. He spoke crassly, and seemingly had no respect for himself or anyone around him. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t get away from him.

He became close friends with one of my roommates and soon enough he was over everyday, driving every good feeling out. Our apartment felt like a black hole to me, and he was the vortex sucking everything and everyone into darkness. I spoke out, and begged him with all of the cordiality I could muster, to just have a little respect for my home. To speak a bit less profanely and with a little more kindness.

He returned the favor by doing the exact opposite, except now all of his focus was on me. He would make inappropriate jokes about me to my face, and poke at sensitive topics. It seemed as though he went out of his way to make me uncomfortable in my own home and all I could do was endure it. How could Sevanna have possibly found any good in him? More importantly, how could I?

As a religious woman, attending a religious university, I hosted a bible study in my apartment every Sunday night. For some reason, amoral-Peter always came. He was sometimes disruptive and it, of course, bothered me. Most things about him bothered me.

“If he doesn’t care to be here and make a genuine contribution, or even just sit there and listen, he doesn’t have to come,” I often thought. Until, one day, something odd happened. I came out of class and found a small note sticking out of the side of my car door. I pulled it out and proceeded to get into my car to read it. It was from Peter. It was from Peter?? It said:

The Original Note

To say the very least, that note humbled me REAL quick. I still did not love him, or even like him, but I understood him a bit more. Sevanna was right, he wanted the same as everyone else, to have friends and feel loved and included. I could see that now.

Love Your Enemies.

As Arthur C. Brooks so aptly puts it, loving others does not mean we must “surrender to the views of other people with whom we disagree with” (page 41). I definitely did not agree with Peter’s behavior, even if it was the way he showed his desires to feel loved. But, as Brooks continues, “my duty is...to be kind, fair, and friendly to all, even those with whom I have great differences” (page 41).

After receiving that note, I understood that his intentions were not malicious, though it appeared as though they were. He so craved the attention he only got from me when he was taunting me. It was his unconventional way of trying to be my friend. My mom was right, too; he was just doing the best he could. He had to have been, otherwise, what would be the point of leaving that note?

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

Though our relationship was still rocky, even after I got his note, I began to see good in him where I hadn’t before. One time he made a joke that made me cry, so he took me aside right away, sincerely apologized, and gave me a hug.

All of the things I hated about him were just a mask, he had a good heart underneath it all. Somehow, I could see what Sevanna saw in him. Overtime, and with reluctance, I grew to love Peter despite his faults--which were not a few--and despite our differences.

Moving Forward

I do not yet hold the capacity to love like my Mom or like Sevanna, but I am closer because of their examples to me. And I am surely closer than I was before I met Peter. I don’t have all of the answers but I know now that, as Brooks reminds us, love is active. It is a verb.

Like anything that requires active participation, it can be strengthened, it can grow, it is something that you can choose to practice or not practice, and it is something that I try to practice everyday.

Maybe, one day, I really will be someone who knows how to choose to love people, even if I don’t necessarily feel love for them quite yet. Maybe choosing love could eventually lead to feeling love. And maybe, just maybe, loving another person will begin to feel and look as natural as it does in the women who have inspired me to make the choice to begin with.

Works Cited:

Brooks, Arthur C. Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from Our Culture of Contempt. Broadside Books, 2019. 

    Marshall, Tim. Painted Red. 26 July 2016.

    Sikkema, Kelly. Man and Woman Holding a Heart Together. 16 Jan. 2020.