Manners and morals pt 2
The flip side of the equation is that you can more effectively love others if you surround yourself with quality people and if you absolutely require yourself to be a quality person. That is you should have your act together and you should take as your closest companions people who have their act together.
I've met people who argue otherwise. There is an even old saw: "A friend in need is a friend indeed". You could take that to mean it is most important to love your friends when they struggle OR you could take it that we should pick as our closest friends people who need friends.
When I was a kid, my mother used to argue that way sometimes. Most mothers will at some time or another. They'll see some other kid who really needs a friend and encourage you to be their friend. There is something right about that. But you wouldn't do that to pick a lover would you? You wouldn't walk into the party and look for the neediest, loneliest guy in the room and go after him would you?
No matter how seriously we take the commandment to "love our enemies" we all love our loved ones more. And we all take it as a given that we have an inner circle who have a stronger call on our love than others. No one seriously believes otherwise and we quietly tune out when some do-gooder a little too in-love with the sound of their own voice tries to get us to take "love your enemies" literally. If we are not nutcases, there is no danger on that side of the argument.
No, the danger is when we start thinking that love means close relationships between flawed people. To the contrary, we have a positive duty to be quality people for the ones we love. It's not good enough to say, I don't have my act together but I'm going to get married to you anyway. I recently ruffled some feathers by saying that attitude is crass, slovenly and immature but I stand by it. If you don't have your act together, your marrying someone is anything but love. And if someone who doesn't have their act together wants to marry you, they're lying about loving you. They may well mean to love you but they won't do it very well because they can't.
Now it may be that that other person doesn't know they don't have their act together. In fact, that is usually the case. Our character is the lens that we see ourselves through and someone with a flawed character will either see there is no problem or will conclude that their problems are normal and therefore nothing they can do anything about. And that is their problem so don't make it yours by marrying them.
This is not a requirement of perfection. Failing is a normal part of human life. But not having your act together is way, way below imperfection.
The flip side of the equation is that you can more effectively love others if you surround yourself with quality people and if you absolutely require yourself to be a quality person. That is you should have your act together and you should take as your closest companions people who have their act together.
I've met people who argue otherwise. There is an even old saw: "A friend in need is a friend indeed". You could take that to mean it is most important to love your friends when they struggle OR you could take it that we should pick as our closest friends people who need friends.
When I was a kid, my mother used to argue that way sometimes. Most mothers will at some time or another. They'll see some other kid who really needs a friend and encourage you to be their friend. There is something right about that. But you wouldn't do that to pick a lover would you? You wouldn't walk into the party and look for the neediest, loneliest guy in the room and go after him would you?
No matter how seriously we take the commandment to "love our enemies" we all love our loved ones more. And we all take it as a given that we have an inner circle who have a stronger call on our love than others. No one seriously believes otherwise and we quietly tune out when some do-gooder a little too in-love with the sound of their own voice tries to get us to take "love your enemies" literally. If we are not nutcases, there is no danger on that side of the argument.
No, the danger is when we start thinking that love means close relationships between flawed people. To the contrary, we have a positive duty to be quality people for the ones we love. It's not good enough to say, I don't have my act together but I'm going to get married to you anyway. I recently ruffled some feathers by saying that attitude is crass, slovenly and immature but I stand by it. If you don't have your act together, your marrying someone is anything but love. And if someone who doesn't have their act together wants to marry you, they're lying about loving you. They may well mean to love you but they won't do it very well because they can't.
Now it may be that that other person doesn't know they don't have their act together. In fact, that is usually the case. Our character is the lens that we see ourselves through and someone with a flawed character will either see there is no problem or will conclude that their problems are normal and therefore nothing they can do anything about. And that is their problem so don't make it yours by marrying them.
This is not a requirement of perfection. Failing is a normal part of human life. But not having your act together is way, way below imperfection.
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