Consequences.
Language is a funny thing. Odd are that you saw the word consequences above, and it evoked a negative emotion of some sort. Seldom do we say, Do you have any idea what the consequences of your actions are? I’m so glad you did that!
Tell me the truth.
Here’s another phrase that’s essentially harmless, but also likely brings up thoughts that are more negative than positive.
Don’t you know I love you?
This one is getting a little more neutral, but still not entirely unloaded. We say or hear this most frequently when we’re having a serious conversation about something with weighty consequences. It’s a plea as much as a question. As opposed to —
You know I love you!
or
You know you love me!
Which are both usually positive.
Then there are phrases that are less inherently loaded, but we load them ourselves, depending on the relationship we have with someone, or the internal narrative we have that colors how we hear anything a person says. Imagine someone you don’t like. Now imagine they say the following:
Don’t you look good today?
Now think of someone you love. Read it again. I bet you can hear the difference in your head, and especially if you read it out loud.
The Stories We Tell
I’ve been paying attention to my initial reactions to people lately, because I’ve been really curious about what my biases are. I’m not super uptight, but I do know I’m more conservative in some ways than I’d like. I’ve really noticed how actively I have to disarm my own reactions when I see someone with a full face of piercings — or the worst, a dude who started showing up on YouTube shorts who plays baccarat and has tattoos on his upper eyelids! I can’t even imagine what would possess someone to do something like that, and not because it could even have implications on the kind of work a person can get, but
Consequences.
It’s really none of my business, is it?
It’s funny that it’s not something that impacts me, and he’s not even someone I’ll ever meet, but I’m ready with a judgment for something he’s done that distracts from what I discovered when I intentionally started watching more videos with him. He’s interesting, and though I couldn’t give a rat’s back about baccarat, it’s fascinating to listen to him talk about it like the sport it is for him.
That’s his name.
And that’s important.
It’s not important because I’m about to shock you with some wild twist about him secretly devoting millions of dollars to children’s literacy in his home town that’s registered 3.1 million children and 282.5k books. That’s Dolly Parton. But the point is that it doesn’t matter whether he’s made a significant contribution or not, or whether tattoos on the upper eyelids bother me — they really do — because it’s none of my damn business, and he deserves respect and love.
Leading with Love
The reason I’ve been paying such close attention to my biases is because, as the current administration continues, and as I find more reasons to be worried for our future, I’m working hard to remember that I’m not a person led around by my senses of offense and objection, or even by the righteous moral outrage so many of us feel about the ways ICE and other government agencies are being used and abused. I lead with my values.
I lead with love.
I know that can seem hard to recognize when I post (another) criticism of the Current Occupant and whatever filthy immorality he’s peddling today. It’s hard for me to recognize it sometimes too, and it’s not because I’m trying to be overly generous that I’ve started to use Trump as a descriptor for half of my bathroom activities. That’s just a bonus! But I do lead with love, because it does no good to have a moral position of any sort if our morality only leads us to treat people with a lack of care, consideration, or dignity as those who commandeered the reins of power last November.
So why do I seem angry?
That question, or at least a similar one, is part of what inspired me to do this, because it’s a question I posed to myself a few weeks ago — why do I feel so angry? It’s easy to come up with legitimate reasons to feel angry right now, we barely have to try at all. Especially when the platforms I post articles like this run on dopamine, doom scrolling, and rage-clicking, it really isn’t any kind of chore to be angry. But it isn’t just having rage at our fingertips that makes this so prevalent — it became so prevalent because there’s a significant part of our social evolution designed to respond to strong negative emotions becuase they were, until the last century anyway, much more necessary for identifying threats when we travelled dark and dangerous roads with no means of reaching help much more frequently.
Anger, properly channeled, is a tool and a friend. It lends us energy to accomplish things. It offers the initiatory energy needed to get me moving when something really does need our attention, or reminds me I have a personal obligation to use my voice and my vocation for the cause of justice. But it’s just that — a tool in my toolbag.
I also have compassion. I carry empathy. I carry the ability to say things others won’t with authentic love. I carry with me the tools to disarm my anxiety and depression so I don’t become a reactive hot mess when I feel like the world is spinning out of control and I worry for my daughter’s future.
The tools are important, but more important is the baggage we carry them around in.
Love’s Fanny Pack
In Ephesians 6:10 and following, Paul writes about putting on the whole armor of God. The Belt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Shoes of Peace’s Good News, Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of Truth are the pieces Paul identifies that will protect us from the wiles of the Devil, and from authorities and cosmic powers. While this makes for great t-shirts, this isn’t an image that’s ever really spoken to me like it has others.
It’s because I have this idea that when 1 John 4 says God is Love, it’s in the context of reminding us that we belong to God and are from God, so we must be careful to live into this as best we’re able by giving what we’ve been given.
And I ask you, is love we have to protect ourselves from love?
No.
Love strengthens us. Why would we need to gird our loins to bear it?
More, if what we bring is love, all I’ve ever learned about it is that love makes me more vulnerable to being hurt, not less. It makes me more open to the pain of betrayal, not less. Love isn’t armor, love is a tool bag, or maybe more aptly, a fanny pack.
Love is the bag we keep close to us to hold what’s most important to us. Perhaps shoes for the feet that bring the good news of peace can stay, but rather than armor, what Love insists is that we become a first aid kit.
Ointment of Truth. It burns when we hear what’s true sometimes, but the burn is just a cleansing.
Gauze of Righteousness. It’s our obligation to bind each other’s wounds and protect each other from all that may infect them.
Bandage of Faith. Once it’s cleaned and covered, our faith brings us the space for healing. It’s the posture of openness to what healing looks like, and allows us to trust that this won’t hurt forever. It also reminds us that we’re still wounded.
Gloves of Salvation. Salvation is an act of God’s kindness and mercy. We don’t always experience it directly, but through the people whose care incarnates the love God has.
Sword of the Spiriit. Yes, it’s still a sword, but a sword is just a tool. Aren’t most tools just as capable of helping as they are of harming
Mikki Mase, eyelid tattoos and all, is worthy of my love and of his dignity. Not because he’s perfect, and not because he’s some secret role model — that’s still Dolly Parton — but because something of him is of the same substance as the something of me that God instills in us all.
Eric the Lutheran, 5:47pm
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Love Sees Color 