We sat down to one of our recent holiday meals with Brian's family, including our triplet niece and nephews. After some typical back and forth about which holiday foods were and were not worth eating, I think there was as much food on the table and on faces as there was on plates or in stomachs. As a matter of crowd control, we started to sing songs and play games at the table (mostly so the adults could have a moment to eat instead of tending to the kids.)
Dinner wrapped up with an old-school game of "telephone," with phrases carefully selected and whispered by each of the kids. Most of them were cute. I'm pretty sure "poop" was the funniest, and also the first one that made it all the way around the table without any changes. The one that brought the game to a quick and awkward end came from Gabby. "I love you." We all complied and finished out the round, but it was apparent how uneasy the words were on the tongues of adult in-laws from various branches of the family who had never shared these words among each other. Of course it had never occured to a 5-year-old that there would be any reason to reserve those words to a select few people.
And why should there be? I know as well as anyone that life experience and social insecurities can make it difficult to express our feelings toward other people. It can be much easier to build walls around ourselves to protect our emotions than it is to make ourselves vulnerable by letting someone know we care about them. The problem is compounded when you know your feelings might be met with equal hesitation by the individual on the receiving end of your care. And perhaps at some level, we want to protect the meaning of the word "love" so it doesn't become tired from overuse, and instead we don't use any word at all to let people know we love them.
Jesus' command to love one another is first an edict to get over our biases against other people and treat everyone, even those who are different than us, the way we would want to be treated. As difficult as that can be to put into action, it is an easy enough concept to grasp. Another difficult idea that Jesus exemplifies is showing care and attention to people who are already in our circle; and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to the love and affection we receive from others.
Some people are already better at this than others, but if you are one of us who can sometimes struggle to open up, maybe you could take baby steps toward loving your neighbor by allowing yourself to be vulnerable to letting people close to you know you love them, too.
Yours in Christ,
John Johns