I read somewhere this week that it is sometimes easier to love all of humanity than to love an individual person one at a time, and somehow this phrase really hit me and got me thinking for quite awhile.
The premise is that sometimes trying to love all of humanity may seem a worthy thing to pursue but it can keep the focus self-centered, and on one's own moral and spiritual well-being. An example given was how we sometimes attempt to reach out to people through technology, eg facebook and twitter, more than we attempt to reach out on a personal, one to one basis.
It can be far more challenging to love a specific person because you have to get in their face, seeing their flaws and quirks which piss you off, and correspondingly show the person parts of yourself which irritate them too. That's what happens in a true relationship. We all have ugly sides to us, bad days when we just want to rip the head off the first person we meet, and selfish, oh so selfish, moments.
And building that face to face relationship takes effort, opens each of you up to potential rejection (especially the initiating person). To sometimes inconvenience yourself greatly to crawl out of bed at 3am to take a sick person to the hospital. To rush back from an important meeting with a client in order to attend the funeral of a person's father. To painstakingly part with hard-earned money to a person whom is most likely never going to pay you back.
Yes, loving specific people one by one is difficult, is painful and infinitely more worthwhile than appearing to love the world, and staying in the safe, non-painful realm of 'liking'.
These thoughts have been like a dagger to my heart whenever I thought about cell group the past week.
Who's ready for true love? I honestly don't know if I am.
I'm still far too selfish.
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