Well, maybe this is a place to wedge this into a thread . . .
In
Works of Love, Kierkegaard focused on those last two words of the Great Commandment "as yourself", which apparently is a kind of throw-away phrase for many people when they read the Great Commandment. Why is it a throwaway phrase? Because most people think of themselves as loving themselves - of course we do! Just ask us! Most of our lives and economy are dedicated to loving ourselves . . . aren't they!
Kierkegaard takes up this challenge and in the course of analyzing it, reveals to us that loving ourselves as we would presuppose to love our neighbor is a much more difficult task than we would assume . . . in fact, Kierkegaard's discussion of "as yourself" reveals that loving ourselves is in fact
the same thing as loving neighbor:
If anyone is unwilling to learn from Christianity to love himself in the right way, he cannot love the neighbor either. He can perhaps hold together with another or a few other persons, “through thick and thin,” as it is called, but this is by no means loving the neighbor. To love yourself in the right way and to love the neighbor correspond perfectly to one another, fundamentally they are one and the same thing. When the Law’s "as yourself" has wrested from you the self-love that Christianity sadly enough must presuppose to be in every human being, then you actually have learned to love yourself. The Law is therefore: you shall love yourself in the same way as you love your neighbor when you love him as yourself.
Who's ever read the "love your neighbor" part of the Great Commandment as an indictment on our inability to love ourselves?
In this light it also becomes clear that the "love your neighbor" commandment can be read virtually as a mathematical formula: Love of neighbor = Love of self . . . only Kierkegaard would presumably tack onto both sides of the phrase "
the right way". In other words, loving one's self, like loving one's neighbor,
the right way requires us to step outside of our own selfish egos to consider - and presumably act upon - the
best possible for ourselves and for our neighbors. For a crude example, one wouldn't wish upon a neighbor an addiction to binge drinking alcohol that causes the neighbor to drink repeatedly to such excess that the neighbor accumulates lethal levels of alcohol toxicity in the neighbor's bloodstream . . . why would one think it's OK to do that to oneself? And yet, it happens all too regularly . . . with food, alcohol, drugs, spending habits . . . you get the idea . . . .
This stepping outside our own selfish egos - a form of
transcendence - allows another phenomenon to take place; it allows us to consider circumstances from another person's point of view. In short, it allows us the capacity to exercise
empathy. To do that effectively, one must first learn to let go of one's ego and learn how to love oneself
the right way so loving neighbor
the right way becomes possible.
What is
the right way to love oneself? For most people that would be learning to give and accept love . . . and in regards to sexuality, for most people the primary type of relationship in which to learn to give and accept love in would be a committed loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex. If heterosexual loving relationships are
the right way for most people to learn to give and accept love, does that mean that
the right way for everyone
has to be in a committed loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex?
If I were to consider what is the
right way for my neighbor who happens to be gay in the same way that I would consider
the right way for myself. . . stepping outside my own selfish ego and considering my neighbor's circumstances in place of my own . . . for my gay neighbor the functional equivalent of my committed loving relationship with a person of the opposite sex would be a committed loving relationship with someone of the same sex . . .
. . . note that I did not advocate for licentious sexual relationships, whether straight or gay; I think scripture is pretty clear that exploiting someone for sex isn't within the scope of the type of love Christianity - or any other religion that I know of - would advocate for.
Is Kierkegaard's type of 'loving neighbor' hard to do? It would seem that it's a whole lot harder to do than we might think at first blush. It requires two steps: (1) being able to step outside one's own selfish ego, and (2) being able to consider what it would mean to love the neighbor
the right way from the neighbor's perspective in the same way one would consider what it would mean to love oneself t
he right way if one were in those same circumstances. Based on my observations of human beings over 60+ years, this is possible for some to do relatively easily, possible for some to do on occasion with ease, and on other occasions with difficulty, and not easy for many ever to do, particularly if they're not related to the neighbor. We have a long way to go to realize the Kingdom of God here on earth . . . perhaps because we're not reading some really wise and powerful books
the right way, and as a consequence we've not learned to love ourselves as our neighbors . . .
the right way.
