I was passing this sign in our dorm on the way upstairs. It was a poster for students to sign, asking for their wishes for peace. One person wrote "That we would all learn to love one another." And it got me to thinking...

What exactly does it mean to love one another? Does it mean simply to accept each individual person for who they are and to "live and let live"? Or does it go deeper than that? Is it more about appreciating a person's worth, even if you can't accept them? Or is it a combination of the two?

Here's my opinion, for those of you who might care enough to read about it...Today we have misconstrued the meaning of the word love. We associate it with that deep down feeling you get when you're with someone who makes you happy, or even with someone who makes you sad. But real love goes deeper than feeling. It requires action.

So what kind of action must we take? To truly love someone is that we put them of higher importance than we put ourselves. We do our best to help them, even if making them better people makes us seem the worse for it. It means we must understand and forgive the faults of those around us, but we needn't support them. In fact, we mustn't...Loving one another is like being a parent to them. You want what's best for them, and you do your best to do what you think is right when it comes to their concerns, even if it doesn't make you popular.

Anyway, my point...We all say "love one another," but how many of us, out of acceptance of one another, actually show a lack of love by not speaking out against things that we know are hurting them? It doesn't mean we're always right, in fact quite often it's the opposite. But shouldn't we at least try?

~September 23, 2003