We Are all Worthy of Love
10
Aug
One of the first times the Habits of Love created a furor was when I said on the Oprah Winfrey Show that being gay was a gift from God. That segment has been viewed, in various formats, tens of thousands of times. You can imagine the confusion, anger and hatred those words stirred up in some.
But they also brought encouragement and power for thousands of others. Relief and tears of joy. A sense that, finally, fear, isolation and prejudice might be left behind—and that love and community could prevail instead.
I said those words spontaneously and I do not take them back. Even Oprah was surprised. Almost instantly, All Saints Church and Oprah’s Chicago Studio were deluged with emails and phone calls. I had inadvertently stirred up quite a maelstrom of fear and love. Let me explain what lay behind my words.
I was in the studio along with Michael Bernard Beckwith, Elizabeth Lesser and Oprah when a young African American man called in over Skype. He’d been born in the Deep South, in Alabama, and was now living in Atlanta, Georgia. He explained to me that he was struggling with constant overspending. In passing, he mentioned that he was gay.
This instantly gave me pause. I was a child of the South. I began my work life there. I could imagine what it might be like to be a gay black man in Alabama and Georgia in the early 21st century.
“Do you feel alone?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered, “I do.”
My heart went out to him. He seemed lonely. Calling in to the Oprah Show was probably a rare connection for him in a world that showed him little compassion and understanding.
Immediately, I knew that isolation could be among his biggest hurdles, not the fact that he was a gay man. He needed Community. He needed Compassion. And he deserved both.
“Being gay is a gift from God, but our culture doesn’t understand that,” I said.
My deepest belief is that all humankind is beloved. Every one of us has at our core a sanctuary of goodness that I call “The Beloved.” If you believe in God, or any divine spirit, you might say this benevolent spirit gave each human being the potential for beauty, love, generosity and compassion. We may not always live up to that, but in our deepest hearts we are truly all blessed.
It is our most challenging and important calling in life to recognize that goodness in ourselves and in others, and to live accordingly. This is where the idea for the Habits of Love took root—in that unshakeable belief that we are all loved and lovable. And that we are all, without exception, worthy of being loved. No matter the color of our skin or our sexual preferences.
As with all of the habits, practicing Compassion benefits from working in increments. If you find yourself resistant to these ideas, give yourself time but commit to engaging in the effort. For instance, you may find it easier to have Compassion for someone who has committed a particular infraction in your life than others, depending on the nature of how your fearful self was formed. We all have different backgrounds and “triggers,” different traumatic experiences, whether personal, familial, or cultural.
Yet if there is a certain group of people with whom I don’t practice Compassion, I sabotage my own belief in its application to myself. Any time we dehumanize, demonize, or too readily categorize any person, we cut ourselves off from the foundation of our own humanity.
Instead, let us embrace all people as essentially good. Let us embrace love instead of fear, and trust that it is Compassion and Community that will heal and strengthen us so that we may face and overcome our challenges.