Loving Alone

Thursday night I got the opportunity to go to a discussion and book reading with one of my favorite authors, Brian McLaren. When I was in college it was his books (along with some wonderful people) that challenged me to finally question for myself the beliefs I'd held forever and come up with a set of beliefs that are actually mine. That makes him a big part of the reason that I am who I am and that I am where I am. There were so many great things said that night and I want to process a few of them over the next several days, so here we go!

The one I want to start with is important to me because it relates to what I talked about yesterday- relationships with and within the Church. Brian said this: "If your spirituality is not just about feeling good but about making a difference in the world in the direction of love, here's the problem... you can't learn to love alone." You can't learn to love without people who are hard to love. People who challenge you. People who disagree with you. People who don't like you. People who hurt you.

Sounding much like Annual Conference to anyone? Or perhaps like those people you are quite content to leave outside the arms of the Church?

I can't learn to love without the people who just made me want to scream in anger and frustration last weekend at Conference. They can't learn to love without people like me (who probably make them spitting mad, too).

Hardcore Democrats can't learn to love without hardcore Republicans. Republicans can't learn to love without Democrats.

Atheists can't learn to love without evangelicals. Evangelicals need atheists.

I could go on forever here, but you get the picture. Learning to love people is like learning patience- you can't learn it without being tested on it. It's easy to love the people who are just like you, but it's the people who are nothing like you who teach you how to love truly. It's easy to love the people in your oh-so-homogeneous little congregation, but it's the people who won't set foot in your door that you truly need to love, and you need them in order to even learn how to do it properly. That means you can't ignore them. That means you have to be out with them. You can't learn to love alone.