“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

(Subject line: Mother Teresa) So, here’s something that’s been on my mind for a while now. It needed time to, I don’t know, percolate? What’s the word I’m looking for? Steep? Stew? Ferment? Why are all those words strangely food-related? This is entirely beside the point.

Anyway, a couple months ago I attended a panel discussion on faith in times of genocide. On the panel were local religious leaders and our friend Evan Vetter, who is working on a documentary podcast about the recent tragedy that is the DR Congo (see: Congocast). Overall, it was a good discussion and though everyone had a unique religious perspective all the panelists were respectful and generous with one another.

One of the questions the moderator asked was something to the effect of, “Christ said to love our neighbors as ourselves, but in the face of genocide, that seems awfully simple.”

I know that sometimes Christ sounds naïve. Like, maybe he just said things like that so Christian bookstores could make lots of money by selling embroidered throw pillows and bad art. Like he said it so we could wave at each other while walking our dogs, Oh there goes Bob, oh hi there! Love your neighbor. How is that going to change the world?

But that’s based on a definition of love that I don’t think Christ ever used. That love is distant, it’s not messy, it’s sterile and harmless, it’s fluffy and sentimental, but only when it’s convenient. It’s love at arm’s length. And it’s impotent, at best, disastrous at worst.

(By the by, the passage she was referring to was Matthew 22:34-40, where Jesus says that all the law and the prophets hang on two commandments—to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. He told the story of the good Samaritan in response to one religious scholar’s question about the technical definition of a neighbor in Luke 10:25-37. Loving your neighbor shows up in Leviticus 19 too, along with other goodies, like don’t show favoritism to the rich but judge fairly, like leave parts of your crops for the poor and the immigrants.)

Because I love myself, I make sure that all my physical needs are taken care of. I make sure I eat, and not only that but I go to great lengths to make sure I eat well. I make sure to surround myself with a strong community of people I trust. I read books, I listen to music, I have hobbies, I enjoy art. I put up a Christmas tree and mow my grass and think about raising chickens. And a hundred other things. This is how I love myself.

So, how do I love my neighbor?

This is how we will change the world. When injustice outrages us more when it happens to another than when it happens to us. When we respond to tragedy as if we ourselves were at stake, as if it were our houses, as if it were our bodies, our children, our country. And when we realize that our neighbors are not only the victims but also the perpetrators. That will change the world, and that is nowhere near simple.

But how to do that? That’s another question entirely, and I’m not sure of the answer. I’m not sure how to go about that, how to respond to things like women being raped with guns in the Congo. That level of tragedy is something I have no idea how to respond to. But even all the smaller things, all the details and all the moments. I don’t know.

I’m going to need a little more stewing, or ruminating, or whatever. Stay tuned…