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 We are pleased to offer a new eight part series 'Learning to love' by Mike Mason. They are edited excerpts from his book 'Practicing the Presence of People (Waterbrook Press, 1999) Mike, a regular contributor to canadianchristianity.com, is perhaps most well known for his book 'The Mystery of Marriage.' that won the ECPA Gold Medallion award.
[other pieces by Mike Mason]
We are not born with love. It is something we must learn. We must learn to love God and we must learn to love people. If we can manage these two things, we'll have fulfilled the entire requirements of Christianity.
Where to begin? As with everything else in the Christian life, we begin with faith. To love God, we must first believe in Him, and the same is true of loving people. We gain access to the kingdom of heaven by believing in God through Jesus Christ. Similarly, we gain access to this world by believing in people, also through Jesus Christ.
Perhaps as a Christian you feel quite pleased with yourself for believing in God. But how much do you believe in your brother the alcoholic? How much do you believe in your son who is on drugs, or in your daughter who this very moment is walking the streets? Do you believe in your neighbor with whom you think you have nothing in common? Do you believe in prisoners, in the mentally ill, in hopeless cases? Or do you write such people off, believing only in those who are just like you?
To believe in God is to believe not only that He is real but that He is good. Believing in people is just the same. Admittedly, it is a bigger stretch to believe in people than to believe in God, because God really is good, while people are not. As Jesus said bluntly, "No one is good but God alone" (Mark 10:18). In the face of what theologians call the doctrine of "total depravity," isn't it a lie to believe that people are good?
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No, because the fact remains that people were created good. To believe in human goodness is to adhere to God's original vision. It is to see people as God sees them and to focus on His plan for their lives. This is belief, remember, not present fact. We're talking about an act of prophetic faith. Believing that people are good will not make them so, but it will issue a powerful invitation. By having faith in people we dramatically increase the odds that they will actually behave well and grow in virtue. This is not naive positive-thinking, but a matter of practicality. It's better to believe than not to. Faith works.
In order to believe in people we must make a decision to know only the good in them. If our eyes are open, we'll see the evil too; but we must decide to know only the good. After all, only the good can be known. Good reveals, evil conceals. The evil in people is what keeps us from knowing them. To know them, we must look to the good.
By looking at people with the eyes of faith----past all the sin, the masks, the games, the lies----we pierce through to the truth of the person whom God created. Such vision requires utter humility. It means entering the larger-than-life presence of others and letting them teach you who they are. It means being content to be at sea, often just beyond your depth. It means expecting to be moved in surprising ways.
If you feel bored or trapped in your relationships, it may be because you're trying to relate out of your mind rather than your heart. Loving people requires listening to the heart, which speaks only through relationships. The mind can function more or less on its own, in a closed system of self-centered thought. But the heart requires bonding with others.
Some of the blind have seeing-eye dogs. They have to 'let go and let dog'!
We all need seeing-eye people in our lives, people we trust enough to guide us into the depths of truths we could never embrace on our own. Perhaps our motto should be, "Let go and let people."
March 20/2008
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