(The Nationalist, 30 April 2004)
Jesus put this question to Peter. It was one of only two that he asked three times. His doing so was surely meant to underline its importance. I don’t believe Jesus put it to Peter to rub his nose in the memory of his three-fold denial; love keeps no score of wrong.
Jesus asks us the same question. What is my answer? I am a product of my time: I half-think, half-live, half-love, half-commit. I am a half-person, uncertain, cautious of totality, wary of absolutes (“extremes”). Is there anything more dead – deadlier – than a little reasonable religion? Jesus was sparing in his use of the word “love”; I think he saw it as too precious to be bandied about.
I cannot expect to love God as I love people. I know God and people differently – God by faith, people by experience. I don’t have an emotional love for God as for family and friends. But would I obey God rather than a person I loved, if that person asked me to do something I knew to be wrong? I hope so. Religion is not reducible to morals but they are the sign of its authenticity. Morals give love of God content; in our time ‘love’ has been emptied of content through overuse and misuse.
Love makes a person vulnerable, and that is something we fear. Love is the doorway that opens to pain, suffering and loss. Within the hardened shell of the isolated self, one is safe from the pain of love. Not a bad description of hell. Love is the bridge between the land of the dead and the land of the living.
To answer Jesus’ question, I have to ask others: Do I love myself? If not, then I cannot love anyone else. I am aware of much in myself that is unlovable. I hesitate to soil the word ‘love’ by applying it to myself. I know I am self-centred and selfish, and they are a parody of love. I have the self-loathing common to our time – all times? – which debilitates and belittles, a counterfeit humility. Do I respect myself? I cannot love what I do not respect. Do I know myself? It is the beginning of all growth.
I do not want to give a facile answer to a searching question. All loves are one: to love one is to love all; not to love one is not to love any. What I do know is that I want to love; maybe that is enough.