Loving Well
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“A purpose of life is to expand the boundaries of our love, to widen the circle of our concern, to open up rather than shut down, and to expand rather than contract.”
- Arianna Huffington
Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s the perfect day to introduce my new blog—Be That As It May: Adventures in Loving Well.
I try to synthesize what I learn to challenge and clarify my thoughts and opinions on a variety of subjects. The phrase “Be that as it may” captures my penchant for gathering and integrating information from many different sources, the more diverse and contradictory the better. I find the whole process exhausting, but exhilarating.
My adventure of loving well began years ago when a college professor at DePaul University encouraged students to create a personal mission statement. Her invitation happened about the same time I was preparing to apologize to a friend whose feelings I had unintentionally hurt with a careless comment a few days before. My friend’s gracious acceptance of my apology led to a humbling glimpse of insight into the power of loving well. I decided right then that my mission statement would be, “To love all people well to the best of my ability, so help me God.”
Pretty lofty, right? And pretty hard to do much of the time, too. That’s why the “so help me God” part is essential; I don’t have a prayer of living up to my own expectations of loving well without lots of help from heaven. But loving well is a worthy goal, and I enjoy looking for new ways to practice. That’s why I later expanded the statement to include loving “all creation well to the best of my ability, so help me God.”
That means catching indoor insects and spiders (note: exceptions abound but I’m working on it) and releasing them outdoors where they belong. Or helping a friend research drought-resistant plants to support the many pollinators living on and passing through his 84-acre ranch in Colorado.
Loving well is more than being polite, or even kind, which can be obligatory, habitual, or self-serving. However, genuine expressions of service, respect, and goodwill cross seamlessly into the realm of loving well. Even when they don’t quite make it, the effort is worthwhile—and a great place to begin.
Loving well can be hard. Ask my husband, Nick, who solemnly shaved my head, bent awkwardly over a smelly garbage can in the garage (my idea, not his), to relieve the tingly pain of losing my hair shortly after I began cancer treatment a few years ago. He rescued me from what I knew would be an emotional and otherwise difficult trip to the local hair salon. For that, I will always be grateful.
Other examples of loving well inspire me, too. A friend’s son, I’ll call him Jay, comes to mind. Jay subsidizes the cost of a house he rents to a struggling family to ensure they have a safe and affordable place to live. Cousin Melanie donated part of her liver to an uncle whose life was at serious risk without a transplant. People like Jay and Melanie help me believe that alongside true hardship and pain there is much good in the world.
The list of ways to love well is endless. Composting and coupon-cutting can be loving well. Buying life insurance qualifies. So does planting a tree or adopting a pet. My own latest attempt to love well is a New Year’s resolution to keep my cell phone charged in case of an emergency—and to stop misplacing it for the same reason.
In a memoir by James Grissom, I discovered a quote by the late actor Marlon Brando. His elegant, insightful description of loving well at its generative best touched me deeply:
I always had a tender spot for frail women—emotionally frail women—who wandered about, always looking surprised. These women reminded me of my mother, and so I felt compelled to look after them. I felt tender toward them, in a way I didn’t with others. Then I began to feel tender toward all people who looked a little frail and a little lost. And then I reached an age when everyone—I mean everyone—looked a little frail and a little lost, and then I was able to feel tender—to feel some love and respect—toward all people. The flawed, wonderful person who was my mother is, I guess, inside all people, and so we need to be tender toward all people. It is good for them, and it is good for us. It should not have taken me this long to feel that way.
Be that as it may, it’s important to talk about what loving well is not. I’ve learned that sacrifice in some form often plays a part. However, loving well does not always mean putting the needs of others ahead of my own. There are seasons of life that require that, of course, such as caring for a new baby or for someone who is injured or ill. More often, I’m called upon to “take one for the team” or “turn the other cheek.” I recall, for example, a young co-worker named “Donna.” Overwhelmed by the fast pace of updates coming her way, Donna somehow deleted an entire database of names, reservations, and other data needed to manage a huge fundraising event just one week away.
Fortunately, I had a backup spreadsheet that contained some of the missing information. The rest had to be pieced together attendee by attendee, sponsor by sponsor, sometimes by memory alone. Crazy busy as we were with our own event responsibilities, our team worked together tirelessly to complete this tedious task. When we finished, programs, nametags, and seating charts went quickly to print, and the event was a great success. All’s well that ends well? In this case, yes!
Even so, the greatest act of loving well can be one I extend to myself in the form of a kind, but firm “no,” which writer Anne Lamott calls “a complete sentence.” More often I find myself saying,“Let me get back to you about that.” This response creates space for careful consideration of my time, energy and genuine interest, which makes loving myself and others well easier and more satisfying.
Then there is social media, which exposes and exploits the negativity and cynicism that has always been in and around us. Outright lies are commonplace. Yet social media can also promote positivity and civility. Unfortunately, experts say that vitriol goes viral many times faster than does virtue. So, what do we do?
Perhaps one woman’s response to a nasty comment on Facebook can be as instructive to others as it was to me. Indeed, I no longer remember the comment itself, only her response, which was something like, “I’m sorry to hear you say that. I feel like maybe you are hurting a lot inside, which makes you say hurtful things to others. I hope you have someone to talk to about why you might be feeling so angry, sad, or scared.”
I know I am not the only one worried about the dangerous state of caring connections with one another—and the consequences if we don’t actively counteract the forces that thrive on the weakening of those ties. Politicians, faith and civic leaders, business people, educators, and others play a pivotal role. However, I cannot rely solely on others to turn the tide. Whoever said, “we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for” was talking about people like you and me. Loving well is something everyone can do.
I once wondered if my mission of loving well was too simple a concept to make a difference. But I now see it as:
a fierce first principle to help move my own heart and the hearts of others toward a more hopeful relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world.
an underrated antidote to a culture that seems determined at times to shove its better angels aside to satisfy its own hurtful agenda.
a firm foundation for those who want to explore loving well in their own lives in ways big and small.
In future blog posts, I hope to convey the valuable role that loving well can play in everything from beekeeping to border security, gardening to gun safety. Can loving well change the world? Yes, I believe it can—one purposeful and positive interaction at a time.
Questions:
Are you someone to whom loving well comes naturally or is it a struggle?
Have you ever been loved especially well by others? What did that look and feel like?
Has loving well been especially challenging for you at some point? What made it so difficult?
