The Command to Love – A Reflection

As the calendar turned over from 2023 to 2024 I kept thinking about chapter 106 (CVI) in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s book/poem In Memoriam A. H. A.. Specifically this line kept jumping out at me.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

To consider ringing out the civic slander and the spite seems especially poignant as the 2024 elections in the United States continue to draw closer. To be blunt, I am sick and tired of the hatred and outright lies that are being told, sold, and believed by far too many in this country. I find it difficult at times to remember that those whom I call “enemies” aren’t actually enemies, but rather they are, like me, human beings created in the image of God. As Tennyson said earlier in his poem, perhaps I need to Ring out a slowly dying cause, and ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Perhaps one of those nobler modes of life is the call to love

In his letter to Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton said the following about loving others: Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy. (December 20, 1961, Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters)

Today I was intentionally reading Merton after a long absence. Life has been hectic and it seems as though the first few months of my “retirement” from active ministry has been filled with taking care of my Dad’s estate, walking with Denise as we both continue to process the loss of our parents and her former mother-in-law, our very dear friend Betty. Since 2016, we (especially Denise with all of the traveling she had to do) had been so busy with ministry and caring for our parents that we never took the time to truly process our own losses and grieve those losses. In addition, we have spent several months searching for a house to call our home as we begin this journey called retirement. So today, I picked up Thomas Merton: Essential Writings and this passage spoke to me.

We must believe in love and in peace. We must believe in the power of love. We must recognize that our being itself is grounded in love; that is to say, that we come into being because we are loved and because we are meant to love others. The failure to do believe this and to live accordingly creates instead a deep mistrust, a suspicion of others, a hatred of others, a failure to love. When an individual attempts to live by and for themselves alone, they become a little “island” of hate, greed, suspicion, fear, desire. Then their whole outlook is falsified. All their judgements are affected by that untruth. In order to recover the true perspective, which is that of love and compassion, they must once again learn, in simplicity, truth, and peace, that “No man is an island.” – Thomas Merton (Preface to the Vietnamese edition of No Man Is an Island found in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, p. 116)

When so many are encouraging us to fear and hate others it is challenging to remember that such fear and hatred is not what our Creator wishes for us. Our challenge, dear reader, is to swim against the tide of hatred and fear. Our challenge is to love and be an example of the love that Merton talked about and what I believe is at the foundation of Tennyson’s “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” I know that for myself this isn’t an easy task.

This challenge calls me to essentially re-wire my brain and my heart. Of course, I cannot do that on my own and therefore I must follow the One who is Love. When he was challenged by the Pharisees, who asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 22:37-40.

Will you join with me as we, in the words of Tennyson, Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace… the larger heart, the kindlier hand?