He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
Luke 19:1-10
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
Matthew 5:46
"I give you a new commandment," Jesus told his disciples, "that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another" (John 13:34).
What is so "new" about this commandment? Love has been commanded before, both the love of one's neighbor (Leviticus 19:18: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself") and the love of God (Deuteronomy 6:5: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might"). But Jesus both expands the scope of love and makes it more explicit:
You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-46
Now nowhere in the Bible does it say we should hate our enemies. But it is clear that love's reach does not usually extend to everyone. The exhortations in Leviticus to refrain from bearing grudges or taking revenge are expressed in terms of "your own people." What is new about the love Jesus preaches is that its scope is unrestricted.
The universality of this love has caused many to react with astonishment. It just does not seem natural to love everyone. People have enemies, and even though these may be few, most people are strangers to each other. One who loves indiscriminately might appear to be a coward or a fool, someone easily exploited. How else can we understand statements like the following:
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
Matthew 5:39-41
It sounds like Jesus is telling his disciples to be weak and spineless, to allow others to take advantage of them at will. This would be true if one were to follow Jesus' advice out of any motive except love: for example, out of fear. But Jesus is not talking about fear. His purpose is to shake his audience, to transform our understanding of love completely. What if we felt so secure in God's love for us, that we could make concessions to people who demand the unreasonable without feeling we have lost anything? Then what might appear to others as weakness would really be a profound inner strength.
What kind of love can Jesus be talking about, that appears so weak to the undiscerning while in reality it is the greatest inner strength one can possess?
To understand this love we need, as Jesus did, to contrast it to the ways we usually love.
The love that we normally know, which we may call "familiar love," is limited. "Familiar" love begins within the family. We love our parents because they provide for us and take care of us. Later on, sexual and romantic love may lead us to a family of our own. The bond of marriage is private. Its intimacy sets two people apart from the rest of the world; they share with each other what cannot be shared with outsiders. The family too is very personal territory. One's home is one's castle, and castles stand apart from other castles, ready to defend themselves against unwanted intrusions.
Beyond the family one may love one's country, one's religious or ethnic group, or any group with which one identifies. Once again these forms of love all distinguish insiders, those who are like oneself, from outsiders, those who are different and who do not belong to the group.
This is what familiar love is like. It is not bad, it is just the way it is. Human love is possessive; it "seeks its own." It has to be that way, to preserve the individual, the family, and the species itself. Freud put it very simply. He said there are two kinds of love: we love those who take care of us, and we love those who are like ourselves. However we love, we are creatures of self-interest. We side with those who are for us, and we distrust and even resent those who are different, outside the circle that our love defines.
Ironically, familiar love seems almost to imply hate. If we love those to whom we feel a special affinity, a sexual, familial, religious, ethnic, or national connection, we become tempted to hate others, to be defensive and suspicious towards them. This is the dark side of familiar love. It lies at the heart of racial prejudice and xenophobia, as well as the hostility towards others we may experience simply in being protective of our spouse or children. It seems only natural to look after ourselves by being afraid of that which is different. Fear, often leading to hate, comes from our desire to protect that which we love.
The ambiguity of familiar love is reflected even in the idiomatic use of language. Consider the following from the King James translation of the Bible:
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
Deuteronomy 21:15-17
The Hebrew word here translated "hated" (senuáh) does mean this literally, but when used in a context like this one it is an idiom meaning simply "less loved." It does not even mean "disliked," as the NRSV renders it; it is simply a term indicating relative preference. But as the language suggests, that which love does not include is immediately associated in the human mind with hate; it is on the outside, rejected. Familiar love has a tendency to exclude the outsider. This is human reality, which the Bible recognizes by taking special pains to protect the right of the child of the one who is less loved.
Jesus' purpose was to point us towards a love that surpasses the limitations of familiar love. To make clear how this new love differed from the love everyone already knew, he had to make his own life a radical statement of this love. Familiar love is limited, since it involves identification with a specific group of people: a friendship, a couple, a family, an ethnic group, a race, a nation. Thus Jesus' mysterious saying, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Matthew 8:20): Jesus does not identify with any group; he lacks the security and sense of place that familiar love provides. He can demonstrate only one kind of love: the love he wishes to set over and against familiar love and its underside of hate.
How does Jesus set apart this new, spiritual love from all other forms of love? In two ways: by his teaching, and by his personal example. In his teaching Jesus says that he brings a "new commandment," a commandment of a love that is new and different, love not only toward those with whom one feels a special affinity but toward the stranger and even toward the enemy. But teachings alone are often ineffective. They can invite us to contemplate higher values, but statements about these values are often hard to assimilate. Very often they just bounce off our old habits and prejudices instead of penetrating through them. So Jesus frequently resorted to indirect methods of teaching. He taught in similes and parables, looking for ways to appeal to the hearts of his listeners.
In the concluding chapters of the Gospel of John we find Jesus teaching Peter the meaning of this love in a way that is indirect but striking:
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs."
A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep."
He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."
John 21:15-17
In this brief encounter, Jesus, to show Peter the meaning of spiritual love, seizes on what Peter holds most dear: Peter's desire that Jesus know the magnitude of his devotion. Jesus surely knows Peter's love for him, but he wants to show Peter just what this love should mean. And so he must frustrate Peter. First he tells him: if you truly love me and all that I represent, you will not love only me but also those who come to seek my message and who may turn to you for help. You must love them whether or not you find them personally appealing, whether or not you find them to be like yourself or take pleasure in their company.
Peter seems not to know what to say, since he makes no response. Jesus wounds Peter by asking him the question three times. Peter, aggrieved, protests his devotion. Jesus' words have touched his heart and so he feels hurt, but this pain opens him to a new way of seeing.
A look at the original Greek text reveals new meanings of this incident. Scholars disagree on how much weight should be put on the original wording, but the author of this Gospel is such a craftsman, and wordplay is so important in it, that it hardly seems likely his choice of words would have been accidental.
In describing this encounter the gospel uses two different words for love. When Jesus asks Peter "Do you love me?" he says agapás me. When Peter answers "I love you" he says philó se. Agápe and filía are often taken to refer to two very different kinds of love. Philía is the love that exists between members of a family; it is "familiar love." While it is genuine love, it does not easily accept the stranger, the one outside the family circle. Agápe, on the other hand, is not self-interested; it does not seek the image of itself in the one who is loved. The basis of agápe, non-self-interested, spiritual love, cannot be the familiarity or appeal of the loved one. What then is its basis?
The story itself provides a clue. The third time Jesus asks Peter the question, he changes his word. He does not use agápe but instead asks "Do you love me?," phileis me, and this time appears to accept Peter's answer. This subtle shift in word choice shows Jesus' awareness of Peter. He sees Peter just where he is, he sees the kind of love Peter wishes to express, and he shows Peter that he sees him and that he accepts him. By shifting to the same word that Peter used, Jesus meets Peter on Peter's own ground. He "speaks Peter's language." This awareness of others and responsiveness to their needs is precisely the basis of the spiritual love that Jesus wants to teach.
Non-self-interested, spiritual love - agápe - is based upon the awareness of another's individuality. This deep awareness lets others know that they are seen, and therefore understood and loved. And in the one who shows this awareness it awakens understanding and compassion. Non-self-interested love cannot exist without this awareness, and where this awareness exists, non-self-interested love will arise.
But, one may say, doesn't increased awareness of another person often lead not to love but to dislike and even hate? Does not "familiarity breed contempt"? Don't we sometimes find in others qualities that make them unlovable, even repulsive?
"Familiarity" belongs to familiar love. Spiritual love is something else. Its awareness is deeper than merely noticing the flaws and warts. It goes to the core of the soul. Spiritual love can love even what seems to be unlovable. It does not have to accept or approve of another's destructiveness, but it sees what is behind it: usually fear and ignorance. When one can see beneath the surface behavior, no matter how hurtful or hateful, one's feelings change. One can relax into this awareness; while resisting the bad behavior if necessary - love does not mean having to play the victim - one becomes free of any need to destroy the person who behaves badly. One's own reactive, destructive emotions lose their fire. This makes rational response possible.
Jesus even said we need to love our enemies. This cannot mean accepting what they do if it is harmful or destructive - this would send a message that such behavior is permissible, which would be contrary to love. For that reason, loving our enemies cannot mean pacifism. Love is an attitude, a state of the soul. Pacifism has to do with behavior. Pacifism holds that the use of force is never justified, even to protect the well-being of others. Since Jesus never addressed this question, those who insist that he preached pacifism have no basis for doing so.
Loving our enemies does not mean feeling good about what they do or mistaking them for friends. Not only would this be humanly impossible, it would be foolish. Enemies will not usually stop being enemies even if you love them. But loving one's enemies means seeing one's enemies. It means being aware of them on a very deep level, deep enough so that even if the need for self-protection remains, the urge toward resentment vanishes. One cannot hate a soul one can see is scarred by the desire to be an enemy.
Spiritual love can love even what seems to be unlovable. At the heart of Jesus' message is the insight that the type of perception that sees only someone's unlovable traits does not go far enough; it is perception at a very shallow level. Only a deep level of awareness can serve as the basis of love. And Jesus demonstrated this by the love he showed to a man whom most considered particularly hateful and loathsome.
Zacchaeus was a tax collector. In Jesus' time people despised tax collectors, and for good reason. Tax collectors acted like extortionists. They made their living by taking more money from people than Rome required and pocketing the difference. More than likely such activity was the source of Zacchaeus' wealth; he was, after all, a chief among tax collectors. It would seem that to know Zacchaeus would be to find a thoroughly despicable human being. How could anyone possibly love him?
What people saw in Zacchaeus was the obvious, surface appearance. He was a man feared and hated, considered by others a sinner. Jesus did not see him that way. Luke gives us only a few clues to tell us just what Jesus saw.
Zacchaeus did not know who Jesus was, since this is precisely what the gospel tells us he came to find out. But certainly he was aware of the commotion surrounding Jesus, and that Jesus seemed to be some kind of celebrity. Jesus, for his part, knew Zacchaeus' reputation, since he recognizes him and calls him by name. But he sees more than just the reputation. He sees a little man making a big effort to see him by climbing into a sycamore tree. Is this man just curious? Jesus sees something more, in the man's tenacity, his desperation. He calls to Zacchaeus and invites himelf over to his house. Far from taking exception to Jesus' forwardness, Zacchaeus receives him joyfully. Jesus touched something deep in Zacchaeus' heart.
When Jesus saw Zacchaeus watching him from the tree, he saw not simply a curious man, but a human being expressing a strong inner need. This must have touched Jesus too. Knowing Zacchaeus' reputation, Jesus surely knew how much this man was hated. In Zacchaeus' determination he saw not only an indication of the man's curiosity but also an expression of the effect all this hatred must have had upon him. He saw both Zacchaeus' pain at being so despised, and his desire to escape it, to find salvation. Underneath the surface, which is all that superficial perception can detect, Jesus saw a deep spiritual need and a desperate yearning to fulfill it. Jesus was aware of Zacchaeus: he saw something beautiful in a man whom everyone else detested.
Jesus' seeing had a dramatic healing effect on Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus pledges half his goods to the poor, and promises to restore everying not rightfully taken. Jesus calls this a sign of Zacchaeus' "salvation." What accounted for this change, and of what exactly does Zacchaeus' salvation consist?
Perhaps for the first time in his life Zacchaeus found himself in the presence of someone who was aware of him totally. Jesus was no pollyanna. He clearly saw in Zacchaeus the behavior everyone condemned. He knew that Zacchaeus needed healing. He did not condemn him, because he could see more than his behavior. He saw the core of Zacchaeus' being. He saw Zacchaeus' self-hate and his yearning for another kind of life. He saw also Zacchaeus' ability to change, and his capacity for kindness and love. He saw all this in a man who, to all appearances, was a hateful sinner.
In the presence of Jesus' seeing him, Zacchaeus for the first time could see in himself these same redeeming qualities. He could see that he really was more than his hateful appearance. He could see that not everything about himself was abhorrent, and he could love himself enough to risk making a loving gesture toward others. Love elicits a loving response, which at first may take the form of remorse. Zacchaeus' remorse is a sign that love has touched his heart.
Because he found himself in the presence of love, Zacchaeus became able to love. The love that transformed him was Jesus' awareness of his complete individuality. Such awareness is not self-interested. It seeks no personal benefit, but only the truth of another's being. When possessed by such love, one's own ego seems almost to disappear: and so Jesus has been called a "transparency" through which God's own love is able to shine. Through the purity of his awareness Jesus allowed not his personal desires but divine love itself to become present to Zacchaeus.
This is the basis of salvation. Salvation is the state of knowing oneself in the presence of love. It is transformation through the power of divine acceptance. It does not result merely from belief, but from profound inner change.
Zacchaeus' healing was not physical; it was moral and spiritual. In the presence of Jesus' total awareness, the correction of his hated flaws became possible. His response was unrestrained joy: joy at finding himself accepted, at finding himself known, at finding himself loved. Joy is the response of the spirit to the power of love.
The highest form of love one can express toward another is the nonpossessive, nonjudgmental awareness of the core of his or her being. Awareness at this level always brings forth a compassionate response toward that person. If we do not respond with compassion, if we respond with indifference, fear, or resentment, then our awareness is not deep enough.
Often we do not respond to what the other is, but to our own thoughts that we project onto the other, or to the way the other makes us feel about ourselves. Usually we respond with hurt and anger when another's actions hurt us personally; these are the moments when love is most difficult. This love does not come to us in an instant. It takes time, commitment, and work to get there - and for this we also need to treat ourselves with compassion. But even if we find it hard to be loving, we can still know that a loving awareness is possible that can transform our entire view of the situation, and perhaps even the situation itself. This knowledge can give us hope when love seems beyond our grasp.
Maintaining the awareness that becomes love is simple to understand but difficult to do. It is what distinguishes Jesus' love, agápe, from Peter's love, philía. Philía is not a difficult love to maintain. We naturally love those who love us back, those to whom we feel close ties. Even the love of all humanity, philanthropy, is not really difficult: one can give of one's substance without really giving of oneself. In contrast, agápe, love of the individual, can be hard work. It is often not easy to love an individual with his or her annoying quirks and eccentricities. In fact, it is impossible - unless we can become truly aware of something else beneath the disagreeable surrace.
This kind of love is a great inner strength. It enables us to stand firm in trying situations without being swept away by our emotions. It removes us from the control of other people's provocations. It gives us the freedom to respond not in kind but as the situation requires. If we can respond to hate without hating, then we cannot be manipulated by another's hostility. We cannot become victims of other people's efforts to make us feel upset.
But how can we express or even know this love if we have never experienced it? Zacchaeus had Jesus to show it to him. What if we have never known anyone whose awareness of us was deep enough to show us love?
This love is really God's love, and human beings are merely its instruments. Even if we have not come to know this love through a person, we can still develop the capacity for this love within ourselves. The way to discover just what this love is, if we have never been shown it, is by becoming aware of what its absence feels like.
This means facing the emptiness and the pain that the absence of this love produces. What would it take to fill this void? If we have any idea at all, can we offer it to others? That may turn out to be the best way to find it for ourselves.
To show this particular kind of love to others - not just any love, but a love that respects their individuality and that makes no demands - may in fact be the way toward knowing that we ourselves are loved by God. "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them" (1 John 4:16). To find God as a living presence within the soul, we need to know ourselves as active participants in this love.
There is, however, one tremendous block to non-self-interested love, and that is resentment.
It is important to understand the difference between resentment and anger. Re-sentment literally means feeling something over and over again. It is like a dirty wound that continues to fester. It drains one's vital energy simply to keep itself in operation.
The frustrating persistence of resentment comes from the presence of self-hate. Resentment is an attack on the self; it creates stress on the body, sapping its energy and wearing down its defenses. It is painful to be in the grasp of resentment, and what makes it so painful is the self-hate that always lies at its root.
What we hate in ourselves is the feeling of being unable to cope, of being powerless, of being the victim of something or someone stronger than we are. Resentment is not the same as anger; it fact, it results from the inability to deal with anger. When anger takes no constructive direction it remains trapped inside oneself and acts upon body and soul like a poison. But often it is easier to turn our anger inward, against ourselves, than to endure the futility of not being able to express it openly, or the guilt and fear we may experience if we do express it.
If resentment blocks our ability to love, we need to find a loving presence within ourselves that can overcome it. Love comes through awareness. The kind of awareness that brings us to love is a nonreactive presence that seeks not to judge but to know and to understand. If we are resentful, we need to understand the burden we are carrying.
This burden is anger. Anger need not be toxic, the way resentment is. Anger is a natural human response to the unfairness and the injustice of life. It turns into resentment when our inability to accept it leads to self-hate. One cannot always will oneself to accept what appears to be unacceptable. So when we confront a situation that we can't accept, our anger keeps bouncing off it and right back to us.
If we are to find freedom, we need not to repress but to focus our anger. Far too often in spirituality anger is spoken of as a bad thing. Anger in itself is not bad; it depends on what we do with it. If we make a global judgment against all forms of anger, then we will only drive it underground where it really can do terrible damage - the history of religion certainly seems to bear this out. It is true that Jesus warned us about anger (Matthew 5:22), but he was talking about anger that is personal and vindictive. In other places we see Jesus himself expressing anger - anger against injustice, anger against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, anger towards the traffickers in the Temple - this is not a vindictive anger, but a focused anger whose intent is to work for positive change.
Far too often in spirituality, "enlightenment" is confused with quietism. Enlightened individuals are described as having no desires, no attachments, no "upsetness." Such people may be good at meditation but are not likely to be found on the front lines trying to relieve human suffering. Those out there doing the hard work are usually the ones who are sufficiently upset at the sight of sickness, poverty, and pain to be motivated to try to do something about them.
The danger occurs not when anger merely exists but when it starts to control us. When that happens, even anger against injustice can be used to perpetrate new injustice. And so Jesus rightly warned us against vindictive anger. Anger is energy, and must become a servant of the good, not a master itself. If that energy is harnessed and properly channeled, it can accomplish great things. But once anger becomes resentment, it can easily be used as a force for evil.
And so we return to the question of finding a loving presence within ourselves that overcomes our resentment. If we can feel only love's absence, we can find love by practicing awareness. We possess a basic capacity for awareness that we may call the "nonreactive observer." When in the grip of strong emotion, we can step back from it and observe it, as if from a distance. This takes practice, and meditation can be a great help. The "nonreactive observer" within us seeks to understand without judging, and so is fundamentally compassionate. From a safe enough distance, we can let go of the anger as if we were suddenly exhaling a huge breath built up far too long. The energy behind the anger will not disappear, but we will be able to see it and to decide what we want to do with it. Awareness brings freedom.
This freedom enables one to be a helpful presence in difficult situations. When carefully focused, saved from becoming hatred of self or others, anger can become a powerful source of creative energy. Awareness can temper anger with love. Even righteous anger, if it becomes hatred, cannot change things for the better. In fact, any situation that we meet with hate we can meet instead with love, if it is a love that settles for nothing less than full awareness of the situation and is willing to use anger's energy to take a firm stand if necessary. The difference between love and hate is that love substitutes awareness for unthinking condemnation.
"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven" (Luke 6:37). These words have often been mistakenly understood as saying that nothing is inexcusable, that moral values are relative, and that people are not to be held responsible for what they do. It is in this sense that often we associate with Jesus the teaching of "unconditional love."
The word "unconditional" can be misleading. It can appear to excuse the inexcusable, even to imply that we shouldn't punish anyone for anything. We know that Jesus himself had strict moral standards. For example, not only did he condemn the act of adultery but the thought as well. Nevertheless, after saving the life of the adulterous woman whom others were about to stone, he said to her not only "Neither do I condemn you" but also "Do not sin again."
"Unconditional love" is a true spiritual value if it means that we try not to allow any person or any circumstance to prevent us from being loving, and that we not allow vindictiveness to overcome our good will. It becomes a dangerous idea if it is taken to mean that regardless of someone's actions, our response should be the same. That is why, in all of these writings, the term "non-self-interested love" is preferred. It avoids this ambiguity, and also points directly toward love's connection to awareness.
God gave us the capacity to evaluate situations and to make judgments, and Jesus never advocated completely relinquishing this capacity. Human judgment is always flawed and always involves the risk of being wrong. However, if we made no judgments at all, we would have no justice system, and predators would be free to attack the weak and defenseless. This kind of "nonjudgmentalism" is actually contrary to love. Jesus could therefore not have intended it. How then to solve the dilemma, the inherent tension between judging and loving?
We have already seen that Jesus denounced not anger itself, but vindictive anger. Judgment becomes destructive when it is motivated by vindictiveness. But judgment can also be motivated by love: love of a compassionate society, love of the citizens whom society is sworn to protect. Therefore judgments can be made and sentences rendered without violating love if the motivation is not revenge but the protection of society. It is important to understand that we can and must make judgments, however flawed our judgments will be because of our human limitations. Life simply will not allow us to escape this responsibility.
And so Jesus said: "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment" (John 7:24). Sometimes life requires us to judge. But "right judgment" sees beyond appearances, taking in the total situation. Right judgment comes through awareness, putting awareness in control over the use of the emotions. Right judgment does not condemn people but addresses behavior, taking measures to limit destructive behavior when necessary. Right judgment is not personal. It is based on values, not on hatred, dislike, or resentment.
Hate and condemnation are always personal, in a double sense: what we hate is usually not sinful behavior or wrong values but another person. And the occasion for our hating is almost always a sense of having been personally attacked. We may disapprove of the wrongs of the world in an abstract sense, but we tend to react with violent, visceral hatred only towards people whom we perceive have harmed us in a personal way. We are likely to become more incensed at the person who cuts in front of us in the supermarket checkout line than at the dictator who has tortured and slaughtered thousands of his people. Most of our judgments are not right judgment.
Thus our hate and our love are usually expressions of our self-interest. Jesus is saying: judge when necessary, but do not judge based upon self-interest. Judge based upon what is right. Have a sound sense of values, and judge accordingly. Do not excuse wrong behavior, but do not condemn individuals. Above all, do not judge others merely according to how their behavior affects your own personal interests. Spiritual love does not condemn individuals, but neither does it release them from responsibility. Spiritual love is therefore best described not as unconditional, but as non-self-interested.
Jesus made the non-self-interested quality of love most evident when he spoke about the possibility of loving even our enemies. Spiritual love calls upon us to love even when we have no rational reason to love, even when love does not seem to support what we think are our best interests. It is easy, as Jesus said, to love those who love us back, who support us, who take care of us, and who are like us. Even Freud called such love "narcissistic." Such love is really a form of self-love: we love what is advantageous to ourselves, the people whom we feel we need. That does not make it a bad love or a wrong love. All these different kinds of love are how we learn, as human beings, what love truly is. All these forms of love are valuable, but only non-self-interested love can give us God's presence, and can give us faith.
Spiritual, non-self-interested love applies just as much to the family as to the stranger. Just as it asks us to love those who are different, it asks us to love those who are familiar in a new way: not because we derive benefit from them but because we are close enough to them to become intimately aware of them as individuals.
Finally, spiritual, non-self-interested love applies to ourselves as well. Non-self-interested love challenges us to escape the narrow confines of the self, but it does not mean the denial of the self. It is not self-negation, it is self-transcendence. We are not required to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of someone else's. Instead, this love directs us toward something greater than the interests of self and others.
To love outside the circle of our own self-interest makes us aware of a value greater than the self. In this way, love brings us God's presence. To devote oneself to spiritual love - a difficult, lifelong task - is to live for something beyond the self, something that becomes an actual presence in the soul, a source of vitality and meaning that no crisis or tragedy can threaten. And when non-self-interested love progresses to the point of becoming a presence within ourselves, then we will know that we, also, are loved.
The non-self-interested love of others heals us from within: it frees us from the toxic effects of our resentment by revealing to us an individual we cannot hate underneath a situation we may have found hateful. If we can experience such healing, then we know the reality of a love that is greater than mere human desire. The knowledge of this love is perhaps the best "proof" of God's reality we can hope for. If we carry this value within ourselves, we carry God's presence within the soul.
Presence is in fact the very essence of love. To be aware of someone in a loving way means we are present with that person. Through this awareness we let that person know that he or she is understood. Just to know we are understood, that we are not invisible to loving eyes, can be healing.
And communicating this presence to another can be as simple as a well-timed gesture. A friend of mine who is blind tells of a moment when she found this love in a teacher's touch:
I was probably sixteen. There was a choral teacher whom I adored; she was the kind of woman and teacher I thought I'd like to be some day. She knew it, I think. We had a wonderful relationship; she was a mentor in the best sense.
One day after a chorus rehearsal, I had something I wanted to ask her. As usual, she had a crowd around her. I stood there casually waiting my turn, one hand resting on the piano. And then, there was a gentle hand on mine. Just a touch, for a second or two. It said: "I got ya. I know you're here, and I'll be right with you." Forty years later, I still remember it. It was so subtle, so wonderfully nonverbal. For a blind person, such messages are rare, and so very highly valued. She knew exactly what to say, and she said it without uttering a word. It made me feel seen, known, and loved all in a heartbeat. I probably wouldn't have used those words to describe it back then, but I think they are exactly the right ones.
Underneath every person's appearance is a spiritual need, a yearning towards God (even if the word is never used) that may express itself in an infinity of individual ways but that can be seen with a discerning eye and an open heart. Love is seeing in the other that which connects him or her to God, which even that person may not see. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8), even in the souls of other human beings.
Spiritual love, awareness and presence, can become a source of faith in a world in which faith is badly lacking. "Anyone who loves God is known by him" (1 Corinthians 8:3). To love God - to love without self-interest - is to be known by love in return, to receive an indwelling presence greater than oneself, which becomes a source of faith and confidence. Our capacity for this love may develop slowly and not always smoothly, but persisting in the search for it is itself an act of love. As soon as we begin seeking this love we have found it, because the seeking itself is love. Of course, as our search continues, we will discover this love on deeper and greater levels.
The search for this love is a dialogue between God and the soul. God speaks to us in every moment in which we discover that awareness and love are inseparable.