To love and be loved

In his book 'Man's Search for Meaning', holocaust survivor and Viennese psychiatrist Victor Frankl, shared his thoughts from a day of working outside the Dachau concentration camp. He was thinking about his wife whom he had married in 1941 but now was separated from. She died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp:
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."[i]

We love love. We dream of it, speak of it, and sing of it. It is the preeminent subject and purpose of life. We never tire of it. The longing for it is rarely fully satisfied.

In my work as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, I met hundreds, maybe thousands of patients; young, old, and in between. I had the privilege of getting close to many of them, knowing their life, thoughts, and feelings on a deep, intimate level. In this work, I soon discovered one thing. It did not take me long to come to one realization. My realization was this: What most of my patients struggled with was love – living a life that in the present or the past had been deficient in love, in some way or another. And, maybe, lacking hope of love in the future.

I do not think only my patients struggled with this. I think people in general struggle with love. Everyone. You and me. Not experiencing sufficient "good" love in life. Not enough love to cover our needs. Needs that are not sufficiently met or satisfied in this imperfect world of imperfect people in imperfect relationships.

Ronald David Laing, the Scottish psychiatrist, and writer, said:
"The main fact of life for me is love or its absence. Whether life is worth living depends for me on whether there is love in life. Without a sense of it, or even the memory […] of it, I think I would lose heart completely."

The truth and reality of life is that we all need to love and be loved. As Christians, we believe that we cannot live truly fulfilled lives without God. Equally, we ought to acknowledge that we cannot live truly fulfilled lives without other people. We are created for relationships. We are created for love.

In "The Harvard Study of Adult Development", maybe the longest study of adult life that's ever been done, they have tracked the lives of 724 men, year by year, for more than 75 years.

Robert Waldinger, the study’s director, said the following in a popular TED talk[ii]:
"So, what have we learned? […] The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period."

That simple. Yet so deep and profound. And, if we may say so – so in harmony with the biblical perspective of the human condition. The Bible is clear: We are created for relationships with God and fellow men – to love God and to love our neighbor – to love God and others.

Waldinger further said:
"We've learned three big lessons about relationships. The first is that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills. It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.

And the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic. People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely."

He went on:
"The second big lesson that we learned is that it's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship, but it's the quality of your close relationships that matters. It turns out that living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health."

Note that. Living in conflict is bad for health. Remember that in all your interactions with other people. Conflict is not only bad for your health. If you cause conflict, you harm the health and well-being of others. Conflict is bad for individuals, families, organizations, churches, nations, and the world. Sadly, we live with what seems to be escalating conflicts on most fronts.  Unresolved conflicts destroy relationships. Unresolved conflicts destroy love.

Waldinger says:
"And living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective. […] The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80."

"And the third big lesson that we learned about relationships and our health is that good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains."

He concludes his TED talk with this statement:
"The good life is built with good relationships."

Eden Ahbez, in the lyrics of his song "Nature Boy", first made famous by Nat King Cole’s recording in 1948, said this:
"The greatest thing you’ll ever learn,
Is just to love and be loved in return."

We need communities where people learn to love and be loved. Our communities should be places of good relationships. Our communities should be places where it is "very good" to be a human being. I believe this is the true and fundamental purpose of community.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:34.35 NLT).

This is Jesus speaking. Speaking to his disciples the last night before he will suffer and die, to save them, to save us, to save the world. The ultimate test of discipleship is love.

"Just as I have loved you…" What does that mean? How are we to love?

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NLT).

How did God love? He "gave". He gave the best he had. That is the essence of love – to give. That is what love is all about. My best definition of love is this: Love is the act of giving whatever you can to whoever needs it. And, oftentimes, that means to 'for-give'. To be given what we have not deserved, and to be loved not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. That's how God loves us.

And the following verse in the Gospel of John is as beautiful as verse 16:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:17 NIV).

Note this: Jesus came to manifest God's love. He did not come to condemn. It is so much easier to condemn than to love. We are not here to condemn others. We ought not to condemn all those who are trying to figure out life, trying to figure out who they are, trying to figure out what life is about, trying to figure out what love is, trying to figure out God, and who may be expected to stumble and fall in the process. We are here to love, to raise people up, and through that, to save people – from pain, suffering, and evil.

Whatever is evil and bad should not be our focus. Our focus should be people. Our focus should be on loving them. On giving them what they need.

Whenever you love someone, and that person receives it, then that person becomes a better person. Love is the only thing that truly can change people for the better. Love raises people up.

Rules and restrictions cannot make people good. They can only limit the outward expression of inner immaturity and dysfunctions. Rules and restrictions without love hurt and harm people. They weigh people down and make them fall.

Only love can make someone realize that they are beautiful and valuable in someone’s eyes, in your eyes, and in God's eyes.  And, as a response, desire to aspire to that beauty and value. Love is not about what we say ‘no’ to, but about whom we say ‘yes’ to – saying ‘yes’ to a person and believing in him or her – despite faults or failings. Healthy self-worth, self-esteem, and self-love are built by being valued, esteemed, and loved by someone else. It cannot be built in isolation. It’s built within loving relationships.

"Just as I have loved you, you should love each other" (John 13:34 NLT).

This is not optional. This is what we must do. It is Jesus’ commandment.

So, what is real love like?

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends (1 Cor 13:4-8 ESV).

These are the qualities of love. These qualities should permeate everything we are, everything God’s people are, everything the church is.

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples (John 13:34.35 NLT).

[i] Frankl, Viktor E.. Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition (p. 37). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

[ii] Waldinger, Robert: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness