Real Love is Gritty
by Susan
Someday, I want to visit The Hotel Utah in San Francisco, which hosts an open mic every Monday, featuring a scheduled musician and whoever else wants to play. Every week or so, host JJ Schultz sends me a note, subject line: “The Utah loves you…,” and saying something like: “Hello. Hope you’re doing good. I’m doing pretty good. Blah blah blah.* So-and-so gave a great performance and you can download it here….”
And one of my favorite music stations, KFOG, “World Class Rock,” emails a personalized note to registered Fogheads like me. The note goes something like this: “Dear Susan, Blah blah blah.* Love, KFOG.”
I like those notes. I appreciate knowing what’s waiting for me some future Monday, and it’s especially nice to get a weekly reminder that somebody loves me.
I was reading a couple of them the other day, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside when my brain kicked in — hello, “loves” me? Yeah, right. Me and thousands of other registered rock fans. Not! That is, the sentiment shown here is not even LIKE, much less LOVE. To love a person, one tiny prerequisite is that you know them, right? When I filled out the registration forms, I had to divulge some information, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t submit so much that they would truly know me, much less recognize me on the street.
Maybe knowledge isn’t the distinguishing factor. After all, what about Christians, who are called to love everyone, even strangers? Maybe what gives love its potency is not its label but its action. Y’know, like Jesus said: “If you gave a stranger food, drink, clothing, shelter, medical help, or encouragement in the form of a prison or hospital visit, it’s as though you had given it straight to me” (Susan’s down and dirty summary of Matthew 25:31-46). In other words, “Just Do It.”
In “Pagans, Christianity, and Charity,” Christopher Price cites examples of how Christians began showing a gritty kind of love that was unheard of in the ancient world, where pagans performed charity only if they were promised something in return.
In the Jewish realm, Jesus expanded the focus on caring for your own relatives to caring for your neighbor, which he defined in an unexpectedly broad way. First, he explained that “lov[ing] your neighbor as yourself” is one of the most important commands, second only to the command that you love God with everything you’ve got — heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then he told the story of the Good Samaritan, where one cultural and religious opponent helps another. (See Luke 10:25-37 — it’s a great read.)
There are numerous practical examples of how Christians honored Jesus’ words by becoming actual “good Samaritans.”
In the early 200s, Tertullian reports that Christians had a voluntary common fund into which Christians monthly deposited what they could. The common fund was then used to support widows, the disabled, orphans, the sick, the elderly, shipwrecked sailors, prisoners, teachers, burials for the poor, and even for the release of slaves. Apology, 39.
This Christian practice was way different from the common impulses of the day. Even before Tertullian said what he said, the satirist Lucian poked fun at Christians for their gritty love:
The earnestness with which the people of this religion help one another in their needs is incredible. They spare themselves nothing for this end. Their first lawgiver put it into their heads that they were all brethren.
According to Christopher, most charities and many hospitals and schools still in existence today were started by Christians, including the now-ubiquitous United Way.
And speaking of today, I mentioned two weeks ago that my sister’s house burned down, to the ground. The replacement value for what they lost is currently estimated at $100K. Just in the last few weeks, Christians from all over the world have generously given an outpouring of tangible love, mostly in the form of cash — nearly $50K worth. My sister and her husband do not recognize the names of many of the people who offered their help in this way. They do not even know how these folks found out about the need. But they did, and they gave — to strangers. That’s gritty love.
What does it mean to practice gritty love with our spouse? our family? our neighborhood? our church? our nation? Iraq?
Have you ever had gritty love extended to you?
* Warning: contents in the blah blah blah sections are longer than they appear.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Not just strangers, we are supposed to even love our enemies! Now that is gritty, or sometimes it is — at least as far as I understand the word.
It reminds me of another word, one that is often used in reference to professional golf and most especially to the foremost practitioner of that art, Tiger Woods. The word is “grind.” What it means in that context is that even on days when the swing isn’t smooth and flowing, when the putts aren’t dropping like flies in a DDT storm, when the precision of the irons reminds one of a butcher rather than a surgeon, and when the drives haven’t seen anything but tall grass since the practice range, you *still* give it everything you’ve got.
Tiger Woods does that, and they call it grinding but it sounds gritty. And if I could give my best to every person the way he gives his best to every shot, I know I’d be better for it.