I don't buy this little proverb. I know it’s about the end justifying the means, but I have found that neither love, nor war is at all fair on anyone!
I couldn’t think of two things that strip people of fairness, especially individuals, more than love and war. I would go as far as to ask that if you have found your experience of love to be completely fair to you – is the state you’re experiencing really love? Despite the denial of this fairness to an individual caught up, the stories of beauty and glory shine brighter than the darkness that marks our individual and corporate history.
And it’s these stories that we like to remember in the adventure of love and war. Perhaps we realize that fairness really isn’t the point. Even-handed treatment of everybody doesn’t allow us the opportunity to be truly human. As Christians we believe that we carry certain characteristics of God. We are Imago Dei – made in his image and I would propose that it is not our physical characteristics that are his image, though all those anthropomorphisms in the Bible help us to think that way. What if the image we carry is more qualitative?
God is a god of sacrificial love and don’t we feel so real, so alive, when we say “hang fairness, I’ll give more than I will receive in this relationship”? We understand horror and injustice exist in our world, but it is in the face of this that we arise and show our mettle. We fight individually and as a community because sometimes we believe Goodness or some ideal is worth fighting for. Does this remind us of the Creator, and also of who we are? Redemption, the choice of love, jealousy and high ideals ring so true with us because Truth himself epitomizes these things.
I’m not sure I’ll ever understand love, or war, but I’m starting to see why the stories of both occupy my mind and heart. Perhaps the occasional unjustice of it all is another opportunity, another chance to become who I am, to be like my God, to rise above easy fairness and pour myself out for someone else.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
"All's fair in love and war"
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2 comments:
There's a whole lot that 'un-quid pro quo' about perfect love isn't there? God's love, mercy and grace and the catalyst it becomes for us isn't an economical love. And it's not even equitable. It's holy though.
Possibly the worst thing we can do with the love of God is attempt to make it stack up against some measure of fairness. It tends to blow everything else out of the water. All of which makes it worthy of emulation and integration.
True stuff, Simon. So often we would rather keep everything fair because it's less painful and weighty on our souls.
I find myself clinging to 'fair love' and it's evidenced in the smallest ways. I find myself trying to refuse other people paying for my food, or driving me places because I don't want/aren't able to repay them. The sense of debt I feel should be experienced and taken further to a realization of grace and love.
But I don't like the wieghtiness of debt, so I don't get the point of love. It's weird. I'm still thinking/living it out.
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