Peacemakers

What you give someone when you give them love is the gift of yourself....It means you give them space. You give them a place where they can be themselves.

Herbert McCabe, God Matters

Love as spaciousness, presence, compassion, patience.  This Agape love (from the Greek) so different from the other definitions of love flooding our culture and consumption society which focus more on what we get out of a relationship is  rather an unconditional love for another that flows out from the deepest parts of our being.  In the Christian contemplative tradition, it describes the way in our very being is created out of God’s love for life.  When we are able through practice to open ourselves to this love, soften the hard grasping egocentric parts, of this kind of loving will naturally flow out into our relationships with all others, with the Earth, and back with God.  It can come to supersede egocentric love, loves for the sake of gain from another.  Filled with God’s abundant love, we have less and less need to manipulate others into loving us for our own selfish, fearful, shameful reasons.

We learn Agape in those special relationships in which it was given to us.  Perhaps through a beloved grandmother, a brother, a teacher, camp counselor, or maybe a sweet animal pet. In the presence of this kind of love, we feel uplifted. Rowan Williams in his book, Being Disciples, writes that, 

“Holy people however much they may enjoy being themselves are not obsessively interested in themselves. They allow you to see not them, but the world around them. They allow you to see not them, but God. You come away from them feeling not, “Oh, what a wonderful person,’ but ‘What a wonderful world,’ What a wonderful God,’ or even with surprise, ‘What a wonderful person I am too.’  

Early in my life, I had a piano teacher, Mrs. Reed, whose love of music and care for her students gave me a sense of this kind of wonder with the world and myself.  She was always kind and patient meeting me where I was as student, coloring notes at 5, offering playful tunes as I grew, and then the more challenging and sophisticated ones when I was ready for them.  She never spoke harshly to me when I did not practice but would just inquire about what else was going on in my life and how we might figure out a way to practice more and better. It was a long slow process of learning piano – I studied with her for over ten years. Through all that time, she was a special thread I followed through childhood into young adult hood as a way to learn faith, commitment, patience, surrender, and delight in the holiness of the music. 

We have the chance to be the peace for all others in our lives.  Through awareness, presence, patience.  Not talking so much as listening, not judging but showing curiosity,  not advising but holding open that space for the truth of another’s heart to flow into the moments, to be seen, and held tenderly.  As we come to know this tenderness for ourselves, from flow of God within us smoothing off the sharp places, making space inside for the joy and sorrow, containing all the mystery and paradoxes of dark mixing in light, we become the peacemakers.