Some Random Thoughts on Small Love

I'm trying to learn about love.  Small love.  When it comes to "Do you love your country?" or "Do you love the pursuit of Truth?" that's so big that a lot can get muddled.  I'm trying to learn about grassroots, daily, mundane love.  Baby steps.

  I mean, big love: Do I love to teach/tell people all kinds of stuff?  Yes.  I really do.  

  But small love: when I'm facing kids in the classroom one at a time, am I kind, compassionate, loving? Stuff like that?  I'm abolishing "should" to learn about that.  Because you've got to.  If I am having a bad day, or am short on sleep or am dreading something, often I start out assuming that I will lack the kindness, patience or whatever, that I "should" have.  So, I don't try too hard for it. I conserve whatever kindness or compassion I think I have, keeping it inside.  In case I need it for situations or people more worthy of it, later in the day.  I say I "should" have it, but assume I don't, and let myself off the hook for not having it.  Without, as I've said, checking to see if I have any.  Just going by how tired or grouchy I feel.  Well, you can feel grouchy and kind.   And people can feel other people's feelings, quite a bit.  What confuses them is when you're clearly trying to hide yours, or keep them crushed inside.  They can still discern all that, and what they're discerning is a twisted mess, and what they're wondering is "Why did you twist your feelings all up like that?"  Lately I've been trying checking to see what's left in the tank, before assuming I'm out of anything good.

   Because I am a Christian, I do not believe that I am to love people out of obedience and willpower and duty.  No one needs that kind of love.  No one.  People can smell it a mile away, and they don't like it one bit.  Rather, I look within to see what's being installed in there by the work of Christ, working in me, as read about in Romans, and other books of the bible. I invite the Holy Spirit into things, as an interested participating Party, and see if we can't get some affection, concern, patience, understanding, connection and mutual goodness flowing.  You know, among the bunch of us.  Because that's a party.

   I mean, it's one thing for me to believe that a kid doing some school exercise is good for him, and then to get bitchy and snarky if he fights me about doing it.  It's quite another to present it kindly, and personally.  Like "I made this one. Try it out.  It's quite a ride.  Hard, but worth it.  Trust me.  I want to see what you come up with."  So different from "Shut up and do what I asked, just because!" 
  You present it "personally" like that, from one person to another, and if the kid's response means it's time to get annoyed, you can be personally annoyed, and have earned it.  You set up a dynamic, a relationship, and they have to betray that to get to your anger.  Rather than pushing your buttons because you're clearly just being paranoid, setting up no connection to the kids, watching for punk behaviour, and lashing out.  Personally is the best way to take stuff, once you're both well aware you're both people.  But not before then.  The hardest thing about my job is getting kids to view and treat me like a person, like a human being.  It helps if they're older teens.  They can see past "adult authority figure/obstacle" and see a person.  No wonder God has so much trouble with us.  Takes a while to grow out of viewing Him as  a figure instead of the source of every personality trait that ever was.

   When I'm teaching English class, it doesn't seem at first to be terribly relevant which kids are the sports kids, and which are the horse girls, and which are the skater kids or the gamer kids or the horror kids.  But actually, if you show the slightest recognition that a kid is a person who likes certain identifiable things, the kid immediately seems to like you, and feel accepted by you.  And this makes your job so much easier.  You've accepted the kid as a person who likes something.  The kid feels known and accepted.  And it's that kid's turn to reciprocate.  Who are you?  What do you like? 

"Love Is Idolatry!"

I remember growing up, and every time I liked something (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Batman, Spider-man, Star Trek, generally something story-based and a bit intellectual and a lot nerdy) my father got uneasy.  "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" was something we heard at church and at home all the time.  Mostly we just heard the "love not."  God "so loved" the world, but we were to fear and disdain it.
   If the church kids got too "into" playing hockey, they were invited to realize that maybe hockey had become an idol for them.  This was what we grew up with.  So, what we did in response, many of us, was kind mute our joy response.  Kinda not love "the things that were in the world" by not loving.  Like, at all.  Not really.  We became detached observers.  We became people who, of course, couldn't enjoy things ourselves, but were really glad if someone else was having a good time.  We became people who mainly experienced joy vicariously, second-hand.

  We had tricks.  I mean, so long as there was some holding back, some level of sacrifice, then you were good.  I mean, I could make Star Wars spaceships out of old boxes and containers when I was a kid, but didn't get to watch the movies or wear t-shirts that said "Star Wars" or anything like that.  It was okay, so long as there was holding back.  So long as we didn't, in the words of Nike "just do it."  There had to be some kind of a limit.  Otherwise we might have experienced a clean, pure, straightforward love of something that maybe wasn't worth all that.  We certainly would have experienced what it was like to love.  It's a good thing many of us had pets.  You can love a pet pretty hard.  And people let you.  The Taylor-Hales Exclusive Brethren do not allow members to own pets.  I think that's very telling.

   I have come to believe that it isn't the supposed "worthiness" of the loved person or thing so much as the action of loving that's important for me.  We live in a very acquisition based society.  Far easier to buy things than lovingly create something.  Far easier to get sex than love someone.  (As if sex were the point.  As if the getting were more important than the giving.)  It is more blessed (lucky, worth it) to give than to receive.  That's just true.  

   Because we need to give.  And all of this holding back our pure and natural love for something maybe a bit silly, like Lord of the Rings or hockey or whatever, doesn't seem to be as "blessed" as it might be.  It was supposed to make us more Christ-like. Maybe it just made us more Pharisee.  Maybe it would have been safe to just go ahead and love Star Wars.  Maybe I would have outgrown it faster if I had.

Only Love People and Things That Are "Worth It" To You?

I was definitely far out of my teens when I first went to a science fiction/comic book convention.  These things are growing lately.  They're not mainly about comic books, either.  And when you go there, you find camaraderie, and people who aren't embarrassed to love something so much they're willing to dress up all in Doctor Who merch, or as a characters from stuff they like.  From shows that aren't even on TV anymore, and maybe were cancelled after only one season anyway.  People will dress up as a character from Firefly.  I've never done that.  Too dignified.  Gotta hold back.  Be cool.  Not commit.

   But when I see someone who's dressed up like something s/he loves, I don't want to judge them.  Not really.  Because they're loving something.  At worst, they look a bit silly (they don't care), or aren't Hollywood Pretty enough to convincingly look like the character they're dressed as (see above), or maybe, they love something that's a bit silly, and not worth the time and effort (ibid).  Is it worth the love, though?  Seems to be.

   It's my genetic makeup, it's my family upbringing, it's my religious culture and more things no doubt besides, which make me the kind of person who, when I feel a tiny glimmer of appreciation, or acceptance, or delight, or "wow!", I repress it immediately. 
   Will I look silly?  Am I associating with something or someone that anyone might criticize or disrespect?  Is it "age appropriate"? Is it worth it?  Well maybe eff all of that, at least a bit, at least once in a while.

Love: Is It In You To Give?

I'm sure a lot of people think I don't have much warmth, or love, or affection, in my heart.  That I'm just lacking all of that hardware entirely. And when they say stuff like that, or treat me that way, I have often been stupid enough to believe it.  But I'm starting to know better.  And I'm starting to learn to let it out a bit.  Which shows that it's in there.

   I first suspected this the first couple of times I reached my very conservative control freak "limit" as to alcohol.  I don't really get drunk or anything (I hold back there, as in most things), and so I do have a line I reach when I realize "You're getting a bit of a buzz on."  And then I stop drinking, and try to enjoy it, and let it fade gracefully.  Now, when people get there, what's in their heart comes out.  All manner of horniness, wrath, spikiness, manipulation, aggression and the like.
  Well, on the rare occasions when I've uncharacteristically gotten a wee buzz on (it's been a VERY long time), what I've started to do is loosen up and start liking everyone and everything around me.  And I start being humorous.  And warm and relaxed.  More open and trusting.  That's what's in me that normally doesn't get to get out. Well, I'm determined to get more able to be like that on a daily basis, and not need a few beer in me.

Brass Tacks

I think "love" that only works as a "yes" answer to a big, broad question like "Do you love your country?" and doesn't work at all, once it comes down to feeling a smidgen of kindness or compassion to "the least of these", one at a time, maybe isn't a very real thing.  

   "Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?"  You say you sure enough do.  Well, are you capable, though, of being a tiny bit kind? Like, even for five minutes?   To children, to animals, to gay people, to people who've had a few too many beers, to pregnant teens?  People you hadn't been planning on running into, but hey, here they are?  Maybe if, generally, you can't do that "smaller" stuff, then maybe I don't believe your claims of the bigger stuff.  Maybe we do the bigger stuff through all the smaller stuff. 

  So, you're a missionary, you're a politician, you're a preacher, you're a novelist, you're a motivational speaker, you're on a committee or something; how do you treat those around you who might need stuff from you, and might not be able to do a whole lot for you?  When no one's looking? When you're not "raising awareness"?

  Here's the thing: there is no real lasting value for the world in your trying to be seen looking kind.  There is no real value in "acting" kind.  There is real value in getting kind.  In learning if there is any kindness in you.
  If you're a Christian, that should be getting installed in there alright, throughout your life. Maybe if you aren't, also, but I'm not not a Christian, so I have no idea.  You should take inventory.  Take a test drive.  Never mind slogans or photo ops or sound bites or "positions" taken on sides of "issues." Don't talk about it.

  Just do it.