Fierce Love Sermon
Delivered 2/4/07
Claudene F. Oliva, Ph.D
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This great commandment is given several times in the Judeo-Christian Bible. In the Old Testament and the New, we are commanded to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbors: According to the Bible, there are no greater commandments than these. All others are subordinate.
Today we are not going to discuss loving God. This commandment we each honor from our own understanding of the divine. Today could, of course, get into a long discussion of just who our neighbor might be. We could get into a long discussion of whether our enemies might be. Although these are important theological questions, they are not the topic of today’s talk.
Today we are going to explore the basic assumption underlying the commandment. Just what does that mean, to love yourself? We know its important, for without self love we cannot fully follow the message in the Bible. We know this and are reminded of it every time we fly in an airplane. One of the first duties of the flight attendant is to remind us that in the event of en emergency, the oxygen will drop down. If we have a child or person needing assistance near us, we do not immediately help them. First we put on our own oxygen mask; then, once our needs are met, we can attend more fully to the needs of others.
A few weeks ago Reverend Pomeroy also talked with you about love. In his sermon he touched upon the Greek meanings of love. I’d also like to turn in that direction today.
Aristotle reflects on the concept of self love. He claimed that there are five ways in which a good person loves oneself and analogously loves another as in true friendship. These features spell out how we should act toward ourselves and others.
The good person will want to survive, to flourish and do well. The good person, guided by reason, wants to be in control of making their own decisions and is not simply swept away by emotions. The good person will have a consistent response style based on their good, virtuous, character and the good person will spend time alone, not just with others. For Aristotle, self love is simply friendship with oneself.
For me this makes sense. I want to love myself and by loving myself I hope to not only survive, but also to make good decisions. I want to do well and to discern what doing well is through spending time by myself.
From a more modern perspective, Baptist minister John Piper tells us that Jesus says in effect “You love yourselves. This is a given. I don’t command it; I assume it. All of you have a powerful instinct of self-preservation and self-fulfillment.
Think of it, Jesus does not command us to love ourselves. He assumes it. He assumes that we love ourselves but I ask you, Is it possible that Jesus assumes too much? Is it possible we do not love ourselves in that unselfish meaningful way that Jesus assumes we do. Is it possible that Jesus overestimates us? How many times when we have read that message, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” have we accented the first part and ignored the latter. Love your neighbor, yes! That is what we must do. As you love yourself, yeah, yeah yeah. Sure, sure, I love myself.
Well, I’m not sure about that. In this day, in this time, I think it is important that we look at the second half of that principle. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
How do I love myself? Even on the most basic level, do I do what I need to do in order to survive and thrive? Do I eat right and exercise? Do I get enough sleep?
Although we might ask just what does this have to do with love, tell me, what kind of decisions do you make on two hours sleep? What is the quality of your work when you have skipped meals or chugged too much pop or beer? If I do not pay attention to my own basic needs, then I am not available to fully help others.
Consider the following situation and its repercussions. In many of our schools, the children and their teachers have twenty to twenty two minutes for lunch. Twenty two minutes to leave their class, wash up, get their lunch, eat it, clean up, go to the bathroom and be back at their desks. Why do we not cry out? Why do we not recognize what we are teaching them when we tolerate this type of schedule. Is it no wonder they run home from school and grab a snack on the run, that they crave fast food, that they squirm restlessly when they go out to a real dinner? This is what we are teaching them.
Sometimes I do not honor even my most basic needs for rest and exercise. In order to survive and thrive I must take care of myself. And yet, I know that I do not always take care of myself.
And do I always make decisions from my most authentic, divine, higher self? Or do I sometimes make decisions of convenience? How often have I made decisions from habit rather than conviction? How many times have I bought something that I didn’t need because it looked pretty, or made me feel special or might impress someone.
Would a decision from my “good character” my most divine self be a different one? What would our daily lives be like if we asked ourselves at decision making times, “Is this a Christian decision?” Is this decision guided by my best reason, my most authentic self?
You know when I am most aware that I am not making good decisions? When sit in front of the TV watching programs that I have no interest in, just so I don’t have to do anything else. I wonder how many of you, like me, have yearned to take Spider Solitaire off the computer. To just wipe it away. Go Satan, get thee away from me!. I really know that I am not loving myself when I play too many computer games or when I zone out in front of the TV.
Tongue in cheek I ask, isn’t watching TV spending time with myself? But I know, in my heart of hearts, that the true meaning of the pronouncement to spend time alone, means something more. It means to focus on understanding myself, learning more about what my core values are and how I want to live them out.
When I first started exploring this issue, I thought, How much does my attention to myself really matter. My argument went thus: “I recognize that I could be more careful in my approach to life but I do good things. I give money to charity, I sign petitions and demonstrate for and against causes I believe in, I support my church home. I try to do the right thing.” So how much does attention to myself really matter.
Well, my friends, I have learned that paying attention to your self is the lynchpin of self love; and it is self love that enables us to love others well.
Psychologists tell us over and over, in study after study, that it is difficult to love other persons if we do not love ourselves. A healthy self love will also steer us away from self-destructive life styles.
How many of you have flown in an airplane? Each time you have flown you have heard the stewardesses remind you that in the event of a disaster, oxygen masks will come down. If you are with a child or someone needing your help, what do you do? Do you help them first? NO, you don’t. First you must take care of your own needs so that you can better serve others. So I am convinced. I need to take time for reflection and self learning. There are many ways of accomplishing that.
Prayer, centering prayer, meditation and spiritual direction are examples. In each instance we are trying to get in touch with our core values, to find out what is important to us and how that translates into our daily decisions.
My Buddhist teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister, Roshi James Ishmael Ford, likes to say that in a meditation or sitting practice one must “Sit down, shut up and pay attention.” I believe that he has it just exactly right. These words are key to self love, to exploring what one needs to survive, thrive, make good decisions and respond from our most authentic self.
The directive to sit down is a bit of a metaphor. One can meditate or pray in many bodily modes. One can stand, lay down, walk, kneel or actually sit. The main task, is to take yourself out of the stream of everyday life, to set aside a special time and place to be with yourself. Setting apart a particular time and a particular place marks the occasion as something out of the daily routine.
Some folks have an altar in their homes, others a quiet corner. Some simply light a candle, or burn incense. Others sit beneath a favorite tree or face in a particular direction at a certain time. It is amazing how designating a special place to sit at a certain time can turn the moment holy.
The second step in this process is to “shut up.” It sounds so easy, but how many of us can attest to just how hard it is. First one shuts up the outside distractions, the land phone, cell phone, radio, TV, answering machine, stereo, I Pod. And then we turn off our speaking voice. And then what happens? I invite you to just try it. I will stop talking for a moment and I invite you to literally try to “shut up.” What happens? For many of us, our inner voice takes over. What’s she going to say next. It’s hot or cold in here. My shirt is uncomfortable. Who is that in the third row? Shutting up is a very hard thing to do! for many of us, it is a great task to stop the flow of constant chatter that invades us every time we try to be quiet. This situation is nicknamed monkey mind. It is probably a pejorative statement toward monkeys, but if you can remember in the movies or the zoo hearing the excited screeching of monkeys as they chatted back and forth, back and forth. It was incessant. Our minds are also incessant and, well, I invite you to try once again to shut up. You may have to do this later on, in a quiet spot. As you try to shut up, listen in on your mind as it continues to chat. Name the topics. Let it go on for awhile. It is quite likely that the chatter will have little substance. The great thoughts that we imagine that we will think when we have the time to think, do not surface to the top. Instead we are left with a parade of insignificant statements, ideas, problems, that relentlessly seek our attention. It is hard to shut up, and yet, if we do not shut up, truly, how can we pay attention? How can we be open to the problems of the world?
So we must learn/practice. There are many methods of shutting up and we might try several before finding one that works for us. Some of us put – almost shove - stray thoughts from our minds, to actively shut them out. Others will simply allow their thoughts to drift in front of their consciousness, hoping that they will become like background music or white noise. Still others will try to concentrate on a non verbal object, perhaps a candle, a sound or the breath. Some will find that ritualized prayer will quiet their mind.
Once we shut up, or perhaps more accurately in those in between times when we are quiet in the midst of our monkey chatter, we are ready to pay attention. To pay attention to the inner voice that needs us to hear what we really want, what we truly value. That voice that allows us to see reality as it really is, not as we want it to be; that body sense of how we really feel about something, that lingering pain, grief or strong emotion that we are unable to risk feeling in our daily functioning. We shut up so that we can hear our bodies cry. Remember the children’s story. When Pat began to reflect, he felt his body’s pain.
Some people call this state, when we have shut up and are paying attention, mindfulness. Ron Kurtz[1] [the founder of hakomi, a form of body centered psychotherapy. (Hakomi is actually a Hopi word that means roughly, Who are you? What is your World? Or Who are you in relation to these many worlds.] reminds us that: Without mindfulness, you won’t be in touch with your beliefs and dispositions. Without paying attention, without awareness, you will be operating out of habit, out of reaction and automatic behaviors. You will be moving, perhaps, getting things done, but you won’t be learning, changing, growing and becoming freer. If you are not mindful, you cannot know or change yourself….Inner awareness clarifies…. But to give up preferences, you must first know you have them and what they are.
Joseph Barndt writing in Dismantling Racism states: "The greatest violence usually does not come directly from the oppressor, but from internalized anger and self-hatred of the oppressed." Theologian Thandeka writes in the preface of her book Learning to be White: "Racist acts are sometimes not motivated by white racist sentiment, but by feelings of personal shame." In order to understand why we act badly towards others or what internalized anger we carry, we have to get to know ourselves. How do we hold shame? What is this self hatred? We have to be able to honestly reflect on our actions so that we can recognize the true meanings behind them. But, unfortunately, we tend to distort reality to meet our needs. Often unconscious, this shifting of reality to meet our selfish needs has important consequences for how we deal with life.
Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty, president of the cyberspace think tank, Center for Applied Philosophy[2], speaks of four ways that lead us toward illusion, - ignoring evidence, hiding evidence, manipulating evidence and manufacturing reality. When something does not fit our worldview, too often we ignore it, hide it or make up a different reality. In that way we do not have to confront our discomfort.
And yet, when we get in touch with those times in which we have distorted reality, when we face our shame or self hatred, when we see ourselves as not the person we want to be, how might we react?
Dr. Christina M. Puchalski[3], M.D. in an article entitled Forgiveness: Spiritual and Medical Implications writes that Forgiveness is the first stage of self-love and acceptance. It is also the basic building block of loving relationships with others…. [it]can result in greater peace of mind, healing of old emotional wounds, peace with others and the possibility of better relationships.
Dr. Puchalski, then, notes that we must forgive ourselves. We must learn to hold ourselves and be present to our pain. Through self forgiveness, we can heal old wounds and bring ourselves greater peace of mind.
So here we are. People of faith. Wanting
to help others. Have we put on our own oxygen mask first? Have we sat with
our feelings? Are we really in a position to help others?
Listen to this quote from aboriginal activist Lilla Watson, "If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together."
Let us close with a quote that you have heard before, but let us listen through the lens of our current talk on self love. It is by Maryanne Williamson and used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech.