Again, I must share how the Festival of Lights is instructing me this winter. In my previous post, I spoke about intentionally creating beauty and joy for ourselves and then sharing it with others, much like my friend, the baby-sweater-knitter, does. One of the displays in my small town’s Festival of Lights, the last lighted display as you leave the typical drive-through route, says this: Love One Another. It’s an adage that everybody thinks they probably aspire to and advocate for. But I think it’s an adage that maybe has been tossed around so much that we don’t really understand what it’s asking us to do.
I’m a fan of the poet and essayist Ross Gay, and in his latest book of essays, Inciting Joy, he writes about the vulnerability love requires, as if we’re “offering up our belly” to another. This intrigues me because as an American, the idea of vulnerability is often linked unfairly with weakness. Yet many will argue that love is the strongest force, energy, spirit of all. So you can see we can be conflicted about love without realizing it. Culturally, we are taught to be strong, individualistic, self-reliant; love suggests that our greatest strength is in our vulnerability, our need for connection and community. Culturally, we interpret “love one another” to mean that “I must do something nice and kind for you.” As good as that sounds, and I don’t want to suggest eliminating random acts of kindness from the world, I’m wondering if it’s time to broaden our idea of what loving another looks like.
The imagery of “offering up our belly” happens regularly in my kitchen between our two dogs, Evelyn and Luna. Evelyn, the puppy, ends up aggravating ten-year-old Luna (Intentionally? Unintentionally?), and the next thing you know, she has flopped on her back, exposing her little puppy tummy to Luna. It’s as if she’s saying (and this is my interpretation): “Hey, I know I may have offended you a bit ago, but I’m sorry. I’d like us to be friends again.” I see or imagine in this interaction a vulnerability that recognizes our propensity to mess things up, especially relationships, and desires to reconnect.
When I see “Love One Another,” I think of Evelyn, on her back exposing her puppy tummy, and I’m inspired to think about love, not just as doing good for others but also as realizing my need to acknowledge my shortcomings and prioritize reconnection. The vulnerability needed in showing love to others requires me to recognize that my worldview isn’t the only one, and it is biased, based on my temperament, education, and life experiences. Yours is, too. My best intentions do not keep me from behaving in less than loving ways toward others, and neither do yours. Loving one another means we move beyond the culturally approved model of doing good deeds for others (which is the easier part, in my opinion) to seeing where we mess up in relationships, apologizing, and reconnecting.