Beyond Belief: Love that Conquers Hate

This past weekend I was on a group retreat for my Audire training program, and on one of the evenings we watched a film called Beyond Belief. This is the story of two 9/11 widows who founded a non-profit organization to help support Afghanistan widows once they learned that widows in Afghanistan rarely have a chance to survive and care for their children with dignity and hope once they lose their husbands. These two women were particularly struck by the fact that many Afghanistan women are being widowed now because of the war America has brought to their land in response to the 9/11 attacks. In the face of hate, we’re returning hate — but what if we brought love instead?

The documentary chronicles the grief these two 9/11 widows face at the loss of their own husbands, their coming together as friends over this shared grief, and their process of founding the organization that helps the widows in Afghanistan. It depicts their efforts to raise money by bicycling 250 miles from Ground Zero to Boston in 2004, as well as their eventual visit to Afghanistan to meet the women whose livelihoods they have enabled to thrive.

Ultimately, this film speaks of a shared conviction that hatred is learned but love conquers hate.

These women seem to embody the spirit of what I began asking here. Instead of hatred and retribution resulting in war, ought we be loving our terrorist enemies? What would such a love look like? Would it have the power to transform hearts? Could such love result in repentance? And even if it didn’t, should we do it anyway?

Lord, Why Did You Tell Me to Love?

My instructor for a class at Spring Arbor shared a poem with us this week that has hit me really hard. It is a poem that speaks of opening our hearts to love those around us with the love God has given us, only to find that every single person in the world is in need of this love from God. As we grow in love for others, the territory of that love expands continually, until we cannot see any person without seeing the need to love.

If we attempt to love each person we meet in our own strength, we will fail because it is too overwhelming for us to handle ourselves; the need is just too great. But if we seek the face of Jesus in each encounter, if we invite him deeper into these experiences, then we will be loving Jesus when we love each one of these, and we will find his presence and love available for us to receive and then pour out.

—————————-

Lord, Why Did You Tell Me to Love? by Michael Quoist

Lord, why did you tell me to love all people?
I have tried, but I come back to you, frightened.

Lord, I was so peaceful at home, I was so comfortably settled.
It was well-furnished, and I felt cozy.
I was alone, I was at peace,
Sheltered from the wind and the rain, kept clean.
I would have stayed unsullied in my ivory tower.

But, Lord, you have discovered a breach in my defenses.
You have forced me to open my door.
Like a squall of rain in the face, the cry of others has awakened me;
Like a gale of wind, a friendship has shaken me;
Stealing in like a shaft of light, your grace has disturbed me.
Rashly enough, I left my door ajar. Now, Lord, I am lost!
Outside, they were lying in wait for me.
I did not know they were so near; in this house, in this street, in this office; my neighbor, my
colleague, my friend.
As soon as I started to open the door I saw them, with out-stretched hands, anxious eyes, longing
hearts, like beggars on church steps.

The first came in, Lord. There was, after all, a bit of space in my heart.
I welcomed them. I would have cared for them and fondled them, my very own little lambs, my
little flock.
You would have been pleased, Lord; I would have served and honored you in a proper,
respectable way.
Until then, it was sensible.
But the next ones, Lord, the others - I had not seen them;
they were hidden behind the first ones.
There were more of them. They were wretched; they overpowered me without warning.
We had to crowd in; I had to find room for them.

Now they have come from all over in successive waves, pushing one another, jostling one
another.
They have come from all over town, from all parts of the country, of the world; numberless,
inexhaustible.
They don’t come alone any longer but in groups, bound one to another.
They come bending under heavy loads; loads of injustice, of resentment and hate, of suffering
and sin.
They drag the world behind them, with everything rusted, twisted, and badly adjusted.

Lord, they hurt me! They are in the way, they are all over.
They are too hungry; they are consuming me!
I can’t do anything any more; as they come in, they push the door, and the door opens wider.
Ah, Lord! My door is wide open!
I can’t stand it any more! It’s too much! It’s no kind of a life!
What about my job?
My family?
My peace?
My liberty?
And me?
Ah, Lord! I have lost everything; I don’t belong to myself any longer;
There’s no more room for me at home.

And Lord, You answered —
“Don’t worry, be happy! You have gained all.
While others came in to you,
I, your God,
Slipped in among them.”

Are We Called to Love Al-Qaeda?

I’ve recently been reading Ronald Rolheiser’s book The Holy Longing, which includes a chapter on justice and peacemaking. Rolheiser notes that so often those who fight for justice, as righteous as their cause may be, often use tactics and language that are not all that different from those they oppose. As a result, they are ineffective. What will win the heart of the world, Rolheiser says, is a heart of love:

“A prophet … must make a vow of love not of alienation. The great modern-day prophets of social justice (persons such as Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Gustavo Gutierrez, William Stringfellow, Oscar Romero, Jim Wallis, and Richard Rohr) would all agree with that. Love, not anger, is the basis for nonviolence and nonviolence is the only possible basis for a new world order of justice and peace … Jesus, of course, is the ultimate example of the nonviolent peacemaker. He never mimics the violence and injustice that he is trying to change.”

As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think about America’s war against terrorism. We have been served evil, and we seek to combat it. We feel this is a cause of justice, not to mention security. And yet in fighting evil, we are bringing war. We bring anger and retribution against those who have brought us harm. We seek their ill. We even seek their destruction.

Is this how Christ would have us live? Christ, the one who asks us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek, who says that vengeance is the Lord God’s alone? Christ, the one who was unjustly beaten and ultimately killed by those who hated Him and who chose to remain silent and to bear the anger with an ever-increasing love for His mission and those He came to save (which included those who raised Him onto the cross)?

Furthermore, are such tactics of war even effective? If we bring violence against violence, what really changes? Perhaps some people die, but the ideologies they espouse go on living. They take up residence in others who then carry on the mission to bring harm. The only thing that can dispel evil is love.

And so I confess that I wince when I ask this question, but: Are we, as Christians, called to love Al-Qaeda? Is love what would really end this war?

The Difference between Charity and Social Justice

The great difference, I’m learning, between charity and social justice is that one is done personally while the other is done on a large scale to effect changes in whole systems of life. As Ronald Rolheiser defines it in The Holy Longing:

“Charity is about giving a hungry person some bread, while justice is about trying to change the system so that nobody has excess bread while some have none; charity is about treating your neighbors with respect, while justice is about trying to get at the deeper roots of racism; and charity is about helping specific victims of war, while justice is about trying to change the things in the world that ultimately lead to war. Charity is appeased when some rich person gives money to the poor while justice asks why one person can be that rich when so many are poor.”

Richard Foster expresses a similar view. In a chapter on the social justice tradition of the Christian faith in Streams of Living Water, Foster shares the story of John Woolman, a Quaker living in the 1700s who took a personal stand against slavery in several significant ways. He told his employer that he believed slavery to be in direct opposition to the Christian faith. He refused to use the products of slave labor in his personal life. He insisted upon paying slaves for their work when he stayed in other people’s homes. And he converted a friend from continuing the practice of slavery through the transmission of his last will and testament. Woolman’s example even led other friends to willingly give up their slaves.

But as Foster puts it, “These incidents, however, were at best successful personal encounters. While important, they were not sufficient in themselves, and John knew it.” So Woolman then worked to end slaveholding among all those living within the Quaker denomination by speaking and writing pamphlets and traveling far and wide to accomplish it — and, amazingly, he was successful in this endeavor.

Over 100 years before the Civil War took place, John Woolman brought about the nationwide eradication of slaveholding within the entire Quaker denomination. This is the difference between a compassion that effects acts of personal charity and a commitment to social justice that effects change at the institutional, systemic level.