Other Selfhoods
Jesus finds five words in the book of Leviticus to describe how we ought to regard people. The quote, which figures into three of the four gospels, is an excerpt from a longer passage. Part of what is striking is that Jesus excerpts five words, not three.
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus says in Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, and Luke 10:27, quoting Leviticus 19:18.
As yourself, he says. The punch comes with these two words at the end. It might have seemed that just the first three words could have covered the command. It might have seemed that just this much would convey the teaching we might expect him to give. Why was it important to include that last part?
No doubt we can see part of the reason. The love that is asked is inconsistent with placing the other person’s worth well below our own. Whatever the definition of love, the “love” in question does not go very far if the command can be taken to mean, “Love your neighbor when you get around to it after your own concerns are taken care of.” Love your neighbor, with nothing further, could have left room for this hearing, so more was needed.
But the specific words that complete the command speak to the regard we give to our own self. The equivalence is made between loving the self and loving the neighbor. Love of self is revealed as the staging ground for loving others. And, by implication, the reason why we fail at it.
To give and allow love to and for my own self seems as though it should be easy. I am right here, after all. Yet it’s not like that; loving the self is difficult because of something we all share: We are alike in being different. And because I am right here, I can see my own distinct combination of differences more starkly than anyone’s. To love the self, I am called to the challenge of loving a particular person who is, to me, very clearly not like every other person everywhere else who is receiving love.
How do I do something like this?
About my combination of differences:
One straightforward detail about the way I am put together is this: I am an introvert. That aspect of me (one aspect among many) is a source of capability and limitation both. It means that in solitude, a more imaginative part of my mind sometimes comes alive; I can see a solution or a way forward that I was not seeing when I was talking about the same matter with a group. Yet the corollary is that the fullest reach of my thinking sometimes feels not quite reachable among others, particularly large numbers. Within larger groups, I often wish I could give more or receive more that I see myself giving or receiving. The desire to throw open a window within me that seems to be painted shut can produce a sense of failing, a lonely pang.
Now here is the question that arises: Does every single source of strength in every person I see feature this same combination, two sides of the coin? There are many aspects of my makeup, not just this one I named. And many aspects of every other person’s makeup, every personality, every different way a person is comprised. Could it be that every single person is walking her own intricate path between power and pangs?
I cannot know. I can’t see into another soul, though I try: I can’t know the experience of selfhood as another knows it. And what this inability really means is that I cannot see the limitation, the pangs. I do see the power! The positive outward effects are impressive and plain. From the extravert, the creative, the athlete, the persuader, the best of what this gifted person can do is apparent when he is able to express it. The pain or frustration, if it’s there, is secret. It is held in private because it is particular and perplexing enough that it is likely difficult to account for and explain, and likely even seems to this person that it ought not be there. The failing is perhaps different from ones I know—some other lack, incomprehension, dependency, or shortfall that is the consequence or mirror image of this person’s combination of gifts. I cannot comprehend another’s variety of incompleteness because I cannot even fully comprehend my own, and therein is the problem. Just like mine, I expect these other pangs are lonely as well.
The way we are to regard others is with love. The measure and means of the love of others is the love of ourselves. But there is no template for how to love one who has so many deficiencies, failings, and shortfalls as what we can see in our own self plainly. Others are impressive and seem complete. Jesus’ words found in Leviticus thus seem like a limitation—if I love others as myself, then my love does not go very far—unless they are instead a direction. This experience of living in the shadowed corollaries of my own sources of strength gives a sense of where to look. That is, beneath the towering strengths of others to the places (unseen) where love is likely needed.
Photo: “Introvert in Disco Hoodie” by Susanrm8.