Love is How We Behave, Not Just How We Feel

Love is shown in how we act

Love, love love.  "All we need is love." 

All of that is really true.

That is the simplicity of it.  Love really does make the world go round.

It is so simple.

So why is it so hard?

"I love you mommy!"  (But don't ask me to help with the dishes.)  "I love you Canada!"  (But I'm going to cheat on my taxes.)  "I love you, dear old neighbours!" (But I'm not going to go out and shovel your driveway in a snowstorm, even if you are eighty years old....)

No, I'm not writing this to say we have to help everyone all the time.  Society is filled with need.  It is also made up of over-doers and under-functioners.  The last thing I want is for the over-doers to feel even more guilty and over-do even more.

But I am calling for self-reflection and balance.  We all have to balance our resources, making sure we get recharged and replenished so that we have something to give.  Also, it can be a wise thing sometimes NOT to rescue someone from a difficulty, if their facing that difficulty motivates them to deal with the underlying causes.  Helping those in need is both a simple and a complex and nuanced thing

I am, however, pointing to the all-too-common disconnect between warm and fuzzy feelings and what we are willing to DO in response to them.

Do I love my health if I neglect my sleep, my diet, and my exercise?  Does someone love their marriage who constantly neglects it?  Speaking as a chronic over-functioner, do I really love my neighbour if I work myself to exhaustion and have nothing left to give?

What we love and what we truly value shows up not so much in what we feel in the moment or even in what we claim.  What we REALLY love shows up in how we act.  I can have all the loving feelings in the world, but if I don't act according to that love, what good is it?

This reminds me of the comparison of one's spoken theology to one's lived theology.  If you want to know what someone has been taught to believe, then ask them what they believe.   If you want to know what someone really believes, then look at how they live.

As for me, I may I say I believe in a loving, generous God, while how I live might be inwardly and outwardly judgmental and stingy.  I may say God loves me, but I might be running negative and deeply self-critical thoughts, and be repeatedly beating myself up.

To make the needed adjustments, I need first to see the big disconnect between my words and behaviour.

So lately I'm noticing that, while I believe in a loving, generous God, I also have a deep fear of there not being enough.   (Not enough love, not enough time, not enough money, not enough resources, not enough kindness....)  Too often, my fear of lack drives my decisions.  And the current world-wide anxiety about our financial systems isn't helping that.  I am as prone as the next person to absorbing and reflecting that fearful, withholding energy.

But what happens when we all get fearful and withholding?  Do I want to contribute to a world like that?  Am I willing to risk some security in order to "be the change I wish to see in the world"?  (Thanks, Ghandi. Great idea.)

I must re-ask myself that every day that I awake.  Today, am I willing to live in the world I desire or in the world I fear?

"Believing that human evil is a power of its own apart from God’s goodness brings about the stuck ego behaviour that people consider bad, while trusting that we are inherently innocent from god brings about organic transformation to loving behaviour that feels good."   Kara Tennis

Let us live the love that we are!

Alison Longstaff