Love your neighbor as your neighbor loves you?

Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. I think it is funny when Freud thinks this commandment should state, “love your neighbor as your neighbor loves you.” Perhaps the fundamental precept of loving your neighbor would be easier to accept if it was a universal doctrine of life. That everybody treated everybody with some measure of love and respect. However, what if I love my neighbor and my neighbor hates me, how does my love for him show any benefit?

I do think that loving your neighbor (or your wife, or kids, etc) has a lot to do with who we are as people… on our ability to be self-aware. Not simply aware of who we are, but to contain a willingness to be that with other people. It is hard to be giving, compassionate or patient if I struggle with how someone may perceive that. Our relationships, and our ability to truly be ourselves (and love) others, is a process of maturity. How I relate to people is a direct result of my willingness to be who I am. I would agree with C. S. Lewis in that the more I understand myself (all of me), the better I am able to give myself to others (love them).

I do think it is tough to love someone who doesn’t love you back, or who hates you back. But I think that Freud’s view that we should love our neighbors only as they love us is centered around himself or the result that love would have for himself.

Palmer states in his classic work, “The courage to teach” that we teach from who we are. He says, “when I cannot see my students clearly, I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself I cannot know them well.” (p. 2). Applying that to relationships: I interact with people from who I am and I cannot interact well if I do not know myself well.

Pride, insecurity, uncertainty, and even ambition can serve to blind me to the needs of others. As I learn about myself, with the implication that I am growing as I learn, I can better understand how best to interact with others from who I am. I can begin to see people and even love them because I am less worried about how I am perceived.

The Wal-Mart Encounter

So I’m walking into Wal-Mart shortly after midnight. Dozens of young men are milling around the store. I see them searching. Searching as if their lives depended on the results. There is a mixture of resignation and desperation in their eyes. No one is laughing. No one is talking. This is serious business.

The questions of some? “What if I’m wrong?” “What if I pick incorrectly?” “What if it isn’t the right thing?”

The question of others? “What if I’m right?” “What if I pick correctly?” “What if it IS the right thing?”

The result of this encounter could be life-altering.

What could drive young men to such soul-searching? Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.