Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Paraphrasing and Reflecting on C.S.Lewis from Mere Christianity:

To love ourselves is not to think well of ourselves, to think that we are nice people when indeed we are sometimes not nice at all.  Nor does loving ourselves mean forgetting and excusing the evil we have inflicted on others.  But loving ourselves does mean that we hope for better from ourselves, that we look forward to making amends, that we not remain in the gutter forever.

We do not always think affectionately of ourselves, or even enjoy our own company.  We do not have to feel fond of our neighbor in order to "love him as we love ourselves."  We are even permitted to hate the things he does, just as we often hate the things we ourselves do. 

What we are not permitted to do is to rejoice in the evil he has done, or in the evil that befalls him because of the things he has done.  We must always regret both evils, just as we would for ourselves.

I once asked one of my students (who volunteered for the experiment) to "model" the kind of love God has for each one of us---agape love. 

There were 24 students in the class.  I asked her to look around and to say whether she felt close friendship, or even affection, for everyone in the class.  Of course, her answer was "No."  Then I asked if she wished harm toward anyone in the class.  Again, her answer was "No."  I asked whether she hoped that each one would reach his/her full potential, and that no evil would prevent that from happening.  This time, she said, "Yes."  "Then," I told her, "you love them as you love yourself.  You love them the way God loves us."

If our gut wrenches when we discover evil coming from or happening to another person, we love that person as we love ourselves.  If we hope for something better for that person in this life or in the next, we love him as we love ourselves.  It has nothing to do with feeling the person sweet or attractive; it has everything to do with what we desire for that person, even if he/she is sitting on death row in a prison.  If we want revenge, we do not love him as we love ourselves. 

As 1 Cor. 13 puts it, love never fails; love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things, rejoices not in evil-----these are all the ways we "put up with ourselves," and the ways we love our neighbor.