Spirit calls me to love my neighbor, and further, to love my enemy. In our current times, I am often confused about how to answer this call.
How can I love those who offend me, whose values seem so different from mine? Racism is wrong. Injustice is wrong. It is wrong that so many suffer searing pain at the hands of those seeking power and profit. Surely I’m right to believe I must work to end racism, to alleviate suffering, to make the world more just. If I don’t oppose evil, aren’t I complicit in the flourishing of evil?
All of this makes sense at one level. Yes, we must oppose evil with our hearts, our minds, and our deeds, but the inner attitude we hold while doing so matters. Our efforts have to be guided by the recognition that we are also part of a larger project that is working at a massive scale, a project to bring more love to a planet that sorely needs it. Our work to right the wrongs of the world is exponentially more effective when we pull in the same direction as the larger project.
We are more than physical beings moving through the material world with our hopes and dreams, bumping into other separate beings who have their own hopes and dreams. We are also spiritual beings who are connected to each other. Our higher self realizes that when we fight fire with fire, we provoke defensive reactions that stoke the flames.
Every fight causes more fight, trapping everyone in a growing cycle, a monster that intensifies the destruction and suffering. The idea that opposing evil requires hating those we deem responsible comes from the fear of the ego self. When centered in our higher self, we can act with a higher moral energy – we refuse to feed the monster.
Feelings of hatred are based on a false belief that if a particular person or group was different, or didn’t exist, the situation would resolve: racism would end, unjust suffering would cease. The fear of the ego self wants to simplify complex problems into understandable bits so we know who to fight. It wants simple answers to the problems of evil, which are, ultimately, incomprehensible.
Staying in our higher self is not a formula that yields easy answers. The world of the higher self is comfortable with ambiguity and long time horizons. There will be evil in the world so long as the capacity for evil remains in the collective human psyche, which seems like a pretty long time. Dilemmas of evil will arise continually. That is the nature of life, and the nature of spiritual growth.
No matter. My higher self does not rely on answers, it relies on guiding principles that help me navigate dilemmas. Our quest remains, as always, to respond to the question – how can I love, even here, even this?
The way of loving another is easy to understand: to accept a person as they are; to respect their right to express agency in the world; to show compassion for the thorns and pain that shaped their growth; to care about their soul; to wish for them to find their inner light; to hope that they can one day join us in the larger project that calls us each by name.
To love the one we view as enemy is not idle fantasy, it is our common purpose. To widen the scope of love is not futile, it is inevitable. The call we hear is clear – to be a bearer of light, no matter the darkness.
This song by the Avett Brothers brings me to tears. Its final refrain: “I have no enemies.”