Love

To quote the late Elie Wiesel, author and Holocaust survivor,

“The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.

The opposite of art is not ugliness. It’s indifference.

The opposite of faith is not heresy. It’s indifference.

And the opposite of life is not death. It’s indifference.”

It’s taken me a while to articulate the emotional burden I carried last week after the election. It wasn’t hate, resentment, fear, or anger that consumed me, but a heavy cloak of indifference.

Even in hatred, we are moved to act. We fight it, denounce it, and disarm it.

And while indifference can be a source of respite during difficult times, if left unchecked, it can lead to apathy, allowing us to ignore others’ essential humanity.

So last week, I called my mother and quite matter-of-factly told her that I no cared what happened to other people. I no longer cared what happened to our country. And I no longer believed in God. My mother listened quietly. When I was done crying, she said with a wisdom that always seems to transcend time, “Stephanie, you put your faith into the wrong hands and called it God. It’s okay. But no political party, man or woman, or institution can make things better.”

Then she told me to pray.

When I hung up, I wasn’t sure if the conversation had made me feel better or worse, but I did what she said. I prayed. I asked God how hate could win. How can selfish lies win? How can people use HIS name for evil? I was numb.

As I went about my day driving to the grocery store, my heart suddenly brimmed with something I can only describe as love. But not just any love—agape love—a selfless, unconditional, universal love that has the power to transform.

That may sound weird. Writing it after the fact sounds strange to me, too. But it was a love that came from a place far greater than my imperfect capacity to love. It is a feeling I wish I could bottle up and pour out in moments of doubt and despair.

Most of the people who know me well know that I am more of an omnist when it comes to religion. I am well-versed in many faiths and have sifted, sorted, and adopted my own particular beliefs about the subject.

One of the most challenging things I have had to come to terms with in Christianity and Buddhism is the concept of forgiveness. It is deeply rooted in compassion and understanding. It is the belief that we must love and forgive those who have harmed us. But how can I love my enemies, and why should I pray for those who persecute myself and others?

Because that’s how He loves us. Before his crucifixion, Jesus’s final commandment celebrating the Passover meal with his disciples was to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

We are to forgive seventy times seven. We bestow unlimited forgiveness.

Even in the throws of agony on the cross, Jesus asked his God to forgive his torturers even as he watched them gamble for his clothes: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” For Buddhists, love and forgiveness are ways to end suffering and find inner peace. For Unists and Yogis, love is compassion, equanimity, and the highest vibration, an unconditional love that can create positive change.

Love is about dismantling the ego, offering help to those in need, holding the door open for someone, saying excuse me, please, and thank you, being kind to those who are not kind to you.

It is about putting more good than bad into the world. We have to embrace love collectively and show each other compassion without judgment. It doesn’t mean we have to love what people do. It means we respond, act, and treat each other from a place of love, even towards those who do not love us, because “they know not what they do.” And if we did, there wouldn’t be so much anger, hatred, and violence in the world.

We cannot meet hate with hate.
We cannot meet anger with anger.
We cannot meet violence with violence.
We can only confront hate, anger, and violence with the most powerful force we have-love.

It’s not just a response. It’s a choice, a decision to act from a place of love.