A society’s baseline economic and political principles tend to infect, or at least affect, interpersonal relationships. I’m reminded of “Paint Your Wagon,” the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood movie adaptation of a musical. The setting is a gold rush town in 19th century California. A woman gets auctioned off as a wife (complicated story). The auctioneer is asked what the rules will be, and he answers, “She’ll be married by the prevailing law of this community, which is mining law, and she will be treated like any other legal claim!”
We live in a capitalist democracy, and so prevailing attitudes about love are capitalist in nature. (Please note I’m speaking of “love” broadly, including romantic, familial, friend, etc.) You love someone because of some value that they bring to your life. For example, maybe they share a common hobby with you, or they make you laugh, or they are your mentor or protégé, or they share a belief system. There’s nothing wrong with this, just as there’s nothing wrong with capitalism per se. But with this basic perspective, relationships are flat. They are simply transactional.
An alternative economic system is socialism, which I will caricature here. Bear with me. A socialist type of love is one that ignores differences between people and instead is shared with everyone equally. White, black, gay, straight, old, young, rich, poor—no matter, you are equally loved. Sounds great, right? And yet, this kind of love is just as flat and lifeless as what I described above. If you do not acknowledge differences, you are denying the basic humanity of each person. In a sense, you love someone despite their value.
There is a better kind. I don’t know what to call it exactly, except perhaps that it approaches agape. In this form, you encounter the whole person, and love them. Not because of or in spite of any particular attribute; you simply know and accept them as they are. Let me give you an example. A dear friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is an amazing woman—kind, loving, Spirit-led, and all-around wonderful. And yet she is almost congenitally unable to be on-time. I don’t love her despite her lack of punctuality. I simply acknowledge it as part of who she is. Indeed, in a sense it is her ability to be fully present wherever she is that keeps her from getting where she “should” be.
Right now, there are protests and riots going on because of the murder of George Floyd. This latest incident has rejuvenated the #BlackLivesMatter movement. A common response from whites is that “All Lives Matter.” That’s the socialist response: everyone is the same, every life is equally valued. That response misses the point. In saying that “Black Lives Matter,” protesters are saying that systemic racism has effectively reduced the value of a black person, so in true capitalist form, things that have less value are discarded, mistreated, de-prioritized. Instead we should say, yes, all lives matter, and that includes George Floyd. Floyd was not just some random person who died; he was a black man from Houston who played some college basketball in Florida and recently moved to Minneapolis. He was a father and grandfather. He was arrested—as far as I know, the arrest itself was appropriate—and then pinned to the ground by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, until he died. Floyd’s black-ness matters; Chauvin’s white-ness matters. Everything matters.
Life is messy. People are complicated. Saying that you love someone because of some small part of them is transactional. Saying that you love all people equally is denying individuality and humanity. We should all strive to love as Jesus loved: particularly, but universally.
Consider, Jesus looked on someone in need and always loved them. But he loved them particularly. He knew them as God knew them. From the Samaritan woman at the well to blind Bartimaeus to the “good thief” crucified with him, Jesus always showed love of the whole person. He was unafraid to rebuke people who were failing in their duties to love God and neighbor, but did so out of love, not condemnation and hate.
I see this kind of love at The Mission every time I visit. Patrons of The Mission usually have hard lives, whether they are homeless or food-insecure or otherwise in a precarious financial position. These hard lives bring out the best and worst in people. When someone behaves inappropriately, the other patrons, volunteers, and staff gently correct them. Sometimes the behavior is unacceptable and the patron needs to lose some privileges, but they are still loved for who they are.
Let us strive to love each other, not in some bland “love everyone equally” way nor in a transactional way, but in a way that acknowledges the complex reality of each person.