“Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky

It is no challenge to love someone you like.  Often, we confuse the two — love and like — but I think love is an action and like is a response.  There are difficult people in our lives every day.  To be honest, there are probably people who picture my face when those words are spoken.  We cannot expect ourselves to like everyone we meet.  There are beliefs, ideals, and actions that separate us from others who behave in ways we don’t accept as appropriate.  We can expect ourselves to love others, regardless of our differences and regardless of their actions.

Have you ever tried to tame a wild animal?  We know from this experience that our demeanor needs to be one of gentle silence that gradually evolves into soothing words, spoken softly and with love.  As the animal’s fear subsides, it sees that there is no need to protect itself from our love and kindness.  Soon we find that the once-frightened beast returns daily to be fed by our hand.  We have learned this lesson from the animals, yet we seem to forget it when dealing with other people.  Why is this?  I suppose we might become frustrated with our fellow humans because we have higher expectations of them than we have of our animal friends.  And what are those expectations?  The more I think about this, it seems that my expectation with other people is that they should live up to my standard.

It is embarrassing to admit this, but I do think that we pass the behavior of others through our own ideas about what it right, what is true, what is acceptable.  In the world of “Love vs. like,” I think we focus more on liking others than on loving them.  I need to ask myself if this is the way I want to be with others — offering them less unconditional love than I would exercise with a wild animal.

Not every animal we might want to tame is able to trust enough to eat out of our hands.  I learned this with chipmunks when I was a little girl.  They were living in a concrete block wall that contained our rock garden.  There was one trusting little fellow who became quite comfortable approaching me, and soon he would sit in the palm of my hand and let me run a finger down the stripes on his back.  This experience was such a special one that I looked for the opportunity to repeat it with another of the baby chipmunks.  He bit my finger hard enough to draw blood.  This was a hard lesson for a young child, and I became wary of extending my hand to small animals for a time — at least until my finger healed; and I became more cautious and reserved and less trusting about reaching out too quickly to strange animals.

It is sad that we also extend these sorts of lessons to the people we meet.  We can fall into patterns of behavior where our own past experiences impede us from loving wholeheartedly.  I look in the mirror and see that it is I who have become the frightened beast who needs someone to tame me with a gentle and loving sort of patience that will allow me to trust.  I see that I am no different from the people I want to turn away from.  I, too, can be wild and scared and unwilling to let love in.  I don’t mean to suggest that we should barge right into someone’s fear and allow ourselves to be hurt and victimized in the name of love.  I learned from that early nip on the finger that sometimes love needs a little more elbow room than others.

The best we can do is to be sure that our action — Love — goes on in spite of our response — like or dislike.  This is the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  This is the gentle and loving patience that mirrors the Love that called us into being.  This is the gentle and loving patience that we hope others will bring to us.  Can we possibly do any less?