Neighbors to hate

“Love your neighbor as yourself…” “Love your enemy…”

Have you ever considered the implications of these two commands from Jesus? Probably not like I’m about to address.

I read some time ago that the single most important discovery to all humanity was that we were capable of repressing thoughts or emotions and disassociating from them. Events, often traumatic, could be set aside in order to carry on the acts of living. Regrettably, the psyche retains these moments, never forgetting, always replaying at the most inopportune times. Only through proper therapy can these moments, the emotions and assorted beliefs be reintegrated back into the make-up of the human.

What is fascinating though is that when these emotions, thoughts or beliefs are not addressed, they take on a shadow persona within each of us. Over time we begin to react towards others who demonstrate the tendencies we have repressed. Often our reactions are manifested in vehement internal contempt for another person or people group. In essence, we create enemies not for who they are or what they have done, but entirely because they remind us of…us.

Why do you find it impossible to love your enemy? Simply because you can’t love yourself. There is that famous quote, “We have found the enemy, and it is us.” Most people laugh this off not understanding the great truth that lays within it. Why can’t you love yourself? What thoughts, feelings, emotions have you repressed, stored on a dark shelf behind a secured door in the recesses of your mind that somehow seems to peak out whenever you’re around someone who depicts their tendencies?

Maybe you were embarrassed as a child by a teacher in front of your friends. You’ve taken the turmoil of that moment and shelved it, however, every time you’re with your friends around a person of authority you loathe them and find it difficult to even show a modicum of respect to them. Or maybe you sway the other direction and just clam up, unable to communicate for fear of being embarrassed once again. This causes you to hate yourself for being so easily manipulated.

It is extremely easy to point out our enemies. We do it all the time even before we’ll pick out our friends. This is the power of repression. Friends are a mirror of who we long to be associated with. Enemies too are a reflection, yet it is a fractured image of ourselves. The greater the internal pain, the greater the outer hatred.

So how do you, we, rectify this matter? Forgiveness.

Mothers have always told us that need to forgive someone who has harmed us. Nations attempt to forgive their enemies of war. Sometimes it works with greater bonds of friendship developed. Other times…well, you know how that works.

Enemies need to be forgiven. Grace needs to be extended. Yes, you’ve been hurt; yes, you are not the one who deserves all that this has created; yes, you are a good person who has experienced something bad. Forgiveness will not magically make all the pain, all the suffering, all the internal dialogue of self-righteousness disappear in a moment. Honestly, it may never leave you. However, it will set you onto a path which will lead to being whole.

Yes, you will have to keep forgiving for a long period of time for all of this to feel right. Consider that some of these issues go way back in your life and daily you have conjured up their memory in a variety of situations. It may require you to forgive the same number of times that you relived the experience just to reintegrate yourself.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to overcome it sooner. But understand that this process is not a microwave answer to being civilized. You’ve stewed on it for a while, allowed the moisture from your tears to evaporate, let the saucy bits of despair burn to the edges of the pain, setting the whole matter to a low simmer, and then walked away ignoring the pungent aroma of hopelessness. Forgiveness will clean up the matter, but you’re are going to have to get into it up to your elbows and press through the tougher, stuck on spots. Yet, eventually, when it’s completed its work on you, and in you, the mirror, the reflection will be filled with love.

Neighbors and enemies, integrated, made whole inside and out. This work never starts outward first. It always begins within…