1 John 3:1-3
1 John 3:1-3 (NRSV):
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
What Love has been given us? I want to answer that question today, and also make a connection to “All Saints Day,” which is today, though not traditionally a priority for Quakers. But we are a meeting full of hybridity in many ways, many of us bringing other traditions into our experience as Friends. And while we may not use the word “saints,” I think we do love our saints. I’m talking about people whom we look to as patterns, examples, living testimonies to the Spirit of Love because of the actions they took on behalf of justice and peace and compassion and so on. Now “saint” can also just mean “holy,” so if we’re going to talk about Quaker saints, for a tradition that is hesitant to elevate anyone above others, we might want to affirm that…we’re all…kind of…saints.
The Friday before last I did something for the first time. I transplanted two small trees across my yard. One was a small pear tree that I thought might benefit from a sunnier spot. The other was a volunteer cedar that was growing very close to my shed, which needed more room to extend its branches and roots and not destroy my shed.
And…I am still on a spiritual high from this experience. Does that sound strange? A spiritual high? All I did was dig up two trees, dig two holes, put trees in new holes, and then went about my day. What’s so spiritual about that? Well, I think it’s because of…Love? Because, in words that would make St. Francis of Assisi nod in affirmation—Francis who referred to the non-human parts of our world as siblings—those trees feel like…family? Like we are children of the same Parent?
I believe Love is more than a feeling or an intention or a preference. I also believe in a Love that is all around us, in all things, and that includes those two trees. When a tree produces fruit, that’s Love. When a tree absorbs carbon dioxide, that’s Love. When a tree gives a bird a place to perch, or gives my family shade, that’s Love. When a tree reminds me that I, too, am rooted in a place and part of a network of mutually sustaining relationships, that’s Love.
Now, the skeptical, including me, might ask: is this really Love or just biology, ecology, psychology, even? Don’t trees lack the conscious intent and emotion required for Love and so therefore, their collaborative and life-giving behaviors aren’t really “Love”?
I’d call it Love. So I guess I’d better define Love…again! In my book/dissertation, I proposed a definition of Love heavily influenced by Jesuit ethicist Ed Vacek and social scientist Lynn Underwood but also in dialogue with five virtues that seemed to emerge as the key pathways to Love as my interdisciplinary research progressed: the virtues of gratitude, self-care, justice, kindness, and hope. Any other virtue you can think of I’m sure I could fit as a supporting virtue for one of those five primary virtues.
So here was my definition of Love, circa 2016-2018. “Love is receptive, ready, fitting, extravagant, and actualizing participation in others’ present and potential goodness.” ( Boswell, The Way to Love, 37.) Now, close your eyes and say that back to me.
Before I give you a new, hot-off-the-press definition, there are three things I’d like you to notice about this definition. One, the key word in my definition of Love is participation. Two, others are dynamic, unfolding, in process; we are a combination of who we are—present goodness—and who we are becoming—potential goodness.
And three, each of those five adjectives corresponds with a virtue. Because Love is receptive, we need gratitude, which helps us take in what nourishes us. Because Love is ready, we need self-care, so that we are ready to participate in others’ lives. Because Love is fitting, giving each person what they uniquely need or deserve, we need a virtue of justice. Because Love is extravagant, above and beyond, we need the virtue of kindness. Because Love is actualizing, making the possible, actual—we need hope.
Now, that’s a fine definition. Good job, younger me. But allow me to revise and simplify, a little: Love is hospitable, compassionate, and nurturing participation in Life.
Now, like before, no word here is haphazardly chosen. I still primarily understand Love as participation, as active engagement.
We don’t love from the sidelines. That’s bystanding or outsourcing. We don’t love in a way that leaves us unchanged. That’s aloofness or stubborness. We don’t love by centering ourselves. That’s narcissism or neglect. We love when we bravely and thoughtfully enter the dynamic reality of another and help that other move forward. We bring who we are into their journey, and are changed, in some way. People are streams of living water that we can help better flow, but not without getting a little wet.
In what do we participate? Life. We participate in other people’s lives, journeys, struggles, sagas. We participate in the lives of groups, which have their own kind of identity and unfolding journey. We participate in ourselves, which might sound odd, but I think this is what happens when we take a drink of water, or a deep breath, or let go of resentment; we recognize our need, and we give that thing to ourselves. And, we participate in the whole ecosystem, including non-human life, and can help things grow and interact but can also stifle growth and interaction.
Which brings me to the final piece of this definition: if Love is participation in Life, what form does that participation take, if it's loving participation? As I’ve lived and grown and reflected and noticed the words I tend to repeat a lot; and as I’ve lived as a Quaker and pastor and parent and friend and hiker, and now tree-mover, three adjectives or pathways seem, to me, to encapsulate the ways we lovingly participate in Life.
We Love through hospitality, which can be about giving but is more fundamentally about receiving. Hospitality is opening our doors and hearts to others. Welcoming others into our space. Curiosity about who they are. Receptivity to their guidance. Openness to being positively changed by others. Humility about how much space we ought to take up. Gratitude for the gifts we’ve received and the ways we have been shaped by others. When we hospitably open our minds and hearts, we Love.
We love through compassion, by which I mean active engagement, not a feeling. Compassion is connecting to others through attention, empathy, and deep listening, to know what others need, what we need. Recognizing the sacredness of the other, that they deserve good things, like safety, joy, and inclusion. Being responsive, taking action to meet their needs, reduce their suffering, or help them become free. When we are compassionate toward others and ourselves, we Love.
We love through nurture. We play one part, alongside many others, in another’s journey. You might be your child’s nurturer but you are one of many who help them become themselves. Love helps things grow and become, it is a relationship of care, mentorship, or friendship. When we supportively come alongside another as they progress in their journey of becoming, whether a friend, a child, or a tree, We Love.
Love is hospitable, compassionate, and nurturing participation in Life. And of course, just as I can’t tell you “here’s the one right way to think about God” without getting the stink eye from you all, I can only give you my understanding, of my experience, of Love. Only you can prevent forest fires, says Smokey Bear, speaking of trees, and only you can define what Love is, for you. But I’ll gladly tell you what I think! I think this thing—this Holy Mystery—is within you, but more than you, but also what happens when the within-you connects with the more-than-you. That’s completely clear, right?
Love is a potentiality, within; that of God in every one. Love is the entire ecosystem, where the love of individuals flows. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God. Love is also our participation in that Life, when the Love in me intersects with the Love in you. I believe God is hospitable, compassionate, and nurturing, and that just as God participates in our lives, we participate in God’s life, which is Love. Our life is Love, as early Friend Isaac Penington said. And because Life becomes, we participate in what others are becoming, whether becoming fed, sheltered, and welcomed; safe, free, and strong; or more fully themselves in terms of identity, vocation, and gifts.
I put a lot of care into moving those two trees. I’ve watched them grow, at different paces. I planned the move for several months, waiting for the right time. I researched how to help them ease into their new home and minimize transplant shock. I labored and got my hands dirty. I put them in places where they had space to grow but also friends, close by. I sat back with an orange mango sparkling water and admired them, once the move was complete. I’ve been checking on them daily, not expecting signs of change, yet, necessarily, but, making sure they’re properly supported and, I don’t know, reassuring myself that they’re not going to just get up in the middle of the night and walk away? You may know that struggle—finding the right balance between intervening and trusting that those you love have the tools they need to figure it out.
I want them to be healthy. And safe. And in community. I want them to grow. I want them to thrive. I want others whom I love to benefit from their quiet presence in the ecosystem of my yard and my life. I’m even humbling myself to tell you all about this, possibly exposing imperfections in my Love as practiced, opening myself to guidance and critique from others, putting the good of my trees over the protection of my ego. I think that’s Love?
I think it’s Love that made me hospitable to the trees, opening myself to their presence in my life and all the reverence and responsibility that comes with that. I think it’s Love that made me compassionate, feeling for and then acting on their behalf. And I think it’s Love that will guide my continued nurture, knowing they basically have all they need within them to thrive, but that, like Linus sacrificially wrapping his blue security blanket around an unimpressive Christmas tree, they may just need a little Love.
See what Love our Divine Parent has given us! Not just a way of saying “God loves you” but maybe more like “here, this is Love, it’s yours, have it, steward it well! That we should be called Children of Love, and that is what we are. We are our Parent’s Child. We can be like our Parent, Love. We can be like our Sibling, Jesus, also God’s child. Not to mention our many other siblings, who, like Jesus, know a thing or two about Love.
If the world, if people, don’t know where we’re coming from, when we let Love guide our actions, maybe they don’t know Love, as well as they could. Beloved, we are God’s children now, learning Love, but what will we become? That might depend on the choices we make now. We “make the road by walking,” it has been said. We learn to Love by loving, even in the little things. But what we do know is this: we have hope that when Love is revealed, we will resemble that Love, because that is our Center, that is what emerged in and between us when we showed up, daily, for friends, our family, our neighbors, even our trees. That’s our hope, and those who have this hope, slowly grow into Love. We are becoming Love.
So if we are children of this Holy Mystery, how can I live as a child of the God who is Love? I can be hospitable, receiving the gift of the other. I can be compassionate, being a gift to others. Together, we can nurture our Love into something beautiful.
And, I can do all these things imperfectly, because perfection is not the point. Participation is the point, doing what we can to help the ecosystem thrive, to stop preventable suffering and violence, to create a collaborative community that practices mutual aid, respect, peace, and sharing abundantly.
And where would be without this Love? Where would we be without those who, through their hospitality, made space for us, and through our hospitality, we have given permission to shape us? Where would we be without those who showed us compassion, responded to our needs, alleviated our suffering, and set us free? Where would we be without those who nurtured us and our gifts, who saw something in us and helped create the conditions for it to grow?
I’d like to invite you to consider the people some might call “saints,” though you might not call them that. People who lovingly participated in your life directly, or whose loving actions elsewhere have helped move our world or community forward in a positive direction. We may all be saints—holy, not perfect—but some who may have played a particularly noteworthy part in your journey, may come to mind today. You are who you are today because of…whom? And, who inspires you to Love? Could be someone who has passed. Could be someone very much present. Could be a tree.
Let’s listen, together, to the Love we’ve been given. By that I mean, the Love within us, that we have been given to grow and share, and the Love of others, given to us.
Queries:
Who has lovingly participated in my life in a profound way?
Where am I being invited to practice hospitality, compassion, or nurture?
Who awakens my Love?
What will I do with this Love within me?