The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [104]
Third, do something practical. Sometimes, on the other hand, you need to do something beyond listening or being present. When Maddy went to Tanzania, she helped to build a school and teach young girls living in a remote area. When she came to our community in Nairobi, she cooked her famous Italian meals for us. She did something practical that helped people in a concrete way and in doing so expressed her love. Again: “Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words.”
Here’s a good question to ask: What active ways of chaste loving can be part of my life? How about: Help your elderly mother clean her house. Drive a sick friend to the hospital. Babysit for a stressed young couple. Take a friend out to dinner even if it’s not her birthday or a special event. Write a letter to someone whom you know is lonely. Drop someone a note on his birthday and tell him why you value his friendship. These are all ways of loving.
Fourth, love freely. One of the hardest parts of love is this: allowing the other to love you as he or she can, not as you want to be loved. Have you ever caught yourself thinking that your beloved should do this or that? If she really loved me, you say, she would do this. We often expect the beloved to be completely focused on our needs. But your beloved may not be able to do precisely what you want. Now, in some marriages partners may have to ask each other to more closely attend to their needs. Still, demanding this (whether you say it aloud or just believe it) essentially takes away a person’s freedom. It can cheapen and even destroy loving relationships.
A few close friends of mine, for instance, aren’t very good at “keeping in touch.” They’ve always been that way—with me and others they love. It’s simply the way they are. Accepting them as they are means not only trusting in their love, but respecting how they choose to love.
Giving people the freedom to be who they are is a form of love. It says, “I love you for who you are, not for who I want you to be.” This reverences the person God created.
Fifth, forgive. Even those who love us most will occasionally hurt us. Perhaps they say something needlessly harsh, perhaps they disappoint us with a thoughtless action, perhaps they even betray us. Can you forgive them? Some of the unhappiest people I’ve ever met are those who refuse to forgive a spouse or a family member and find themselves trapped in a world of bitterness and recrimination.
Forgiveness releases the other from the trap of guilt and can also help to release you from your own anger. It is never easy, but in the end it is an act of love that heals both the forgiver and forgiven. That may be one reason why Jesus of Nazareth stressed it so often in his ministry of love.
Sixth, pray. Ask God to help those you love. Ask God to be close to them. Most of all, ask God to allow you to see others the way God does.
It may sound strange to hear these simple things described as acts of love. Yet they are ways of expressing love in a chaste way. And, by the way, like any act of real love, these actions can be difficult. “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams,” wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky.
And when loving becomes hard, it helps to know that God desires for you to be loving and is always with you as you do so.
Such chaste ways of loving can help those who are not in a committed relationship and who fear they might not be able to live a loving life recognize that they can lead lives of love and intimacy. While their actions are not sexual, they can be among the most powerful signs of love that one can give.
Also, for those who feel trapped in relationships that seem to be only about sex, these insights about chastity remind us that love is much fuller than simply sexual intercourse, as wonderful as that is.