When Thinking Spoils Love

So, here's something that I realized at School of Community this morning: thinking about loving is very stressful to me, but the reality of loving is a much different matter. And I have frequently gotten the two mixed up in my mind, which is my primary residence.

We were discussing this portion of Is It Possible to Live this Way, which led to a discussion of love as the primary need in our lives. I launched into a pontification about love being unnatural, or supernatural, before I realized that what I really needed to talk about was my experience of love, of how demonstrating love is not something that comes naturally to me. This assertion was quickly challenged by someone recalling the whole parental love thing, bringing me into a little tumble of wondering what was I actually meaning when I said these things.

So, as we talked, I realized that when I think about other people, my approach is not (generally) an emotional one, but an analytical one. I don't primarily "feel" about people, I think about them, in the way that I tend to think about food or genealogical information or groundhogs. Oh, I have emotional reactions, but they generally come after I start thinking.

For this reason, as I shared with the group, I realize that I trouble myself about thinking about people (myself included) and seeing excesses or deficiencies -- deviations from the ideal -- as if I were at a fruit market and noticing bruises on apples. This tendency has given me a strong suspicion that I am not a loving person, at least as I imaginatively compare myself with others. One person shared a beautiful Christlike example of reaction to a family member's cohabitation that took solidly into account that person's spiritual state and understanding of what is good, as well as objective truth of Christianity. It fit perfectly with Deacon Scott's post which I recently blogged about. It was a response to a person, not merely an "objective" analysis of a situation.

In my mind, as I shared, it would be very hard for me to plan a reaction of this type. Another example: if someone were diagnosed with lung cancer and had been a smoker, my first reaction wouldn't, honestly, be one of compassion for his pain, but of a mental connection between the lung cancer and the smoking. (And I am not even all that scientifically educated, which makes this all the more frightening to me.) I would get around to the compassionate response, but I'm not one of the people who is gushing out "oh how awful -- the poor man! what can I do for him?!" when such news breaks.

But then I began to realize that mental processes, which have a lot to do with personality, are not the same thing as the action of loving a person who is in front of me. When I can imagine, or when I have, a flesh and blood person standing right before me, compassion can flow from me. With my children, who have been my primary trainers (with my husband) in how to love, their needs are my call -- it's just obvious to me. And indeed generally when someone outside my household shares a need, my heart is right there with her.

However, there are people in my life, generally those I have known longest, whom I've had years and years to think about, with whom I often fear all is lost in our relationship, just because of how I think. How much better would it be to just focus on loving those who are with me, rather than thinking about them, analyzing the relationship, their mind and soul (as if I could analyze their mind or soul!!). Thinking my thoughts is helpful to the extent that it helps me come to understandings within myself, and to the extent that it is prayer, open to Reality in response to my thoughts. But living needs to be about the here and now.

Perhaps what I need to think about is the fact that I am in the presence of other persons who need my action, and my mental freedom to launch into action.

What do you think?