March 30, 2003
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Love The Person You See
Sometimes I find a passage in my reading that is so wonderful that I want to share the whole thing. This is one of those passages from a essay written by Soren Kierkegaard.
To love another in spite of his weaknesses and errors and imperfections is not perfect (complete) love. No, to love is to find hom lovable in spite of and together with his weakness, errors and imperfections. Let us understand each other.
Suppose there are two artists, and the one said, "I have traveled much and seen much in the world, but I have sought in vain to find someone worth painting. I have found no face with such perfection of beauty that I could make up my mind to paint it. In every face I have seen one or another little flaw. Therefore, I seek in vain." Would this indicate that the artist was a great artist? In contrast, the second one said, "Well I do not pretend to be a very good artist, if one at all; neither have I traveled very much. But remaining in the little circle closest to me, I have not found a face so insignificant or full of faults that I still could not discern in it a more beautiful side and discover something glorious. Therefore, I am happy in the art I practice, though I make no claim to be an artist." Would this not indicate that precisely this one was the artist, the one who by bringing a certain something with him found them and there what the much travelld artist did not find anywhere in the world, perhaps because he did not bring a certain something with him? Was not the second the real artist?
In it a sad upside-downess, altogether too common, to talk on and on about how the object of love should be before it can be loved. The task is not to find the loveable object, but to find the object before you loveable - whether given or chosen - and to be able to continue finding this one loveable no matter how the person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As the Apostle John reminds us: "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." ...
If then you wish to become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, wehn he perhaps turns indifferently away or turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you. Love the person you see and see the person you love.
I can easily see the irritations, the disagreements and the failures in my relations with people near me. I make note when I have an expectation that is disappointed, and I fret over the lack of understanding and empathy that I feel is my due. But when I turn my eyes off myself and onto the other person, when I see him as he is not as what I want him to be (for me) I love him more purely and more completely. Paradoxically, when I love in this way, without ignoring the flaws but not focused on them I find it easier to love myself. My own flaws diminish in scale until I see myself as I am.
Love Builds Up ~ To build up is to construct something from the groudn up. Everyone knows what the foundation of a house is. But spiritually speaking, what is the foundation of the life of the spirit? It is love. Love is the origin of everything and it is the deepest ground of the life of the spirit.
When we speak of hte building work of love, we must either mean that we implant love in the hert of another, or that we presuppose that love is in the other's heart and that with this presupposition we build up love in him. One of the two must exist before love can build up. Can a person implant love in the heart of another? No. All energetic and self-assrtive zeal in this regard, all thought of creating love in another person neither builds up nor is itslef up-building. It is unthinkable.
Love is not what you do to transform the other person or what you do to constrain love to come forth from him, it is rather how you constrain yourself. Only the person who lacks love imagines himself able to build up love by constraining the other. The true lover always believes that love is present; precisely in this way he builds up. In this way he only entices forth the good; he "loves up" love; he builds up what is already there. For love can and will be treated in only one way - by being loved forth.
Comments (24)
I loved the piece and agreed with all the way up to..
" If then you wish to become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, wehn he perhaps turns indifferently away or turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you. Love the person you see and see the person you love.
that would be the point where i got lost
would that mean it would apply to someone like a wife beater...it reminded me to much of the old catholic teachings of unconditional love my child if they beat you you must take it..its duty and so on..i might have just read it wrong but it just seemed that part had that ring to it 
great piece
Belinda
This is wonderful and much needed by me. It builds on thoughts I have been having (and thoughts that I spoke of in my last post this morning). It took a long time for me to be able embrace and love all that I am and all that others are. Love them for just that, all that they are. Thank you for posting this. It really touched me.
I'm not much into Existentialism.............although this was interesting reading. I prefer Paul's essay, where he extols the high status of a pure love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Belindaaann38, love the sinner, not the sin. And love doesn't mean "putting up with" the sin.
i'm my own worst critic...this much i know.
and...although i pretty much love all people for what they are, i sure don't have to like them.
(if that makes any sense.)
i've worn myself out giving love to some and getting nothing in return. sometimes you just have to rest.
i really do like the way you take things and analyze them.
Belindaann - there is no reason ever to put up with abuse. Ever. There is a difference between learning to love abusive behavior (this is sick, co-dependent pathology), and learning to love an abuser. I can't imagine any reason to ever encourage a person to remain with an abuser, but I can (and have) counselled former victims on the necessity of forgiveness. One thing I've learned is that it's almost impossible to forgive while holding onto fear and rage. Perfect love casts out fear. It doesn't require us to feed another person's pathology by being a victim. Does that make sense?
Thank you... I have for a long time now been trying to come to terms with this same issue.. and I love the way it was written...
Bright Blessings Chel
Sister, when it comes to existentialism, the deeds are what makes the person. The very actions and choices a person does and makes are who they are. The sin is who the sinner is.
And that is a problem I have with this. How in the world are we to love someone if we do not base it on what that person does, the good and the bad? We have to look at what they do, it's what we base all knowledge of them on, as we cannot see into their souls as to what's truly there. I agree with Belinda on this one, it makes a lot of sense until that point. To turn the judgemental mirror back on yourself before looking to determine if your "loved one" is worthy of your love. That's what the first artist does, looks for someone worthy of his talent, and I don't look at that with scorn. There's nothing wrong with a person knowing his worth, his value. There is something wrong with judging that subjects are not worthy of his talent. I think a combination of artist one and artist two is who we should strive to be, and not one or the other.
Great blog!
Maybe this is so hard to swallow not because it's bosh, but because it's a hard doctrine. I don't entirely understand it, but I think I'd like to.
I've never read anything by Kierkegaard before, but in A Prayer for Owen Meany, I remember that their religion teacher apologizes for Kierkegaard. Why?
Daffodilious, my ideas on love come from this scripture found in Matthew 5:44-45, "But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven: for he maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and unjust."
We can love the person and not love what that person does. Is this HARD to do? Heck yes! I've recently experienced this. My son was persecuted at school for his religion by another kid and this kid's family. I have the choice to love these people, despite their persecutions.
For love can and will be treated in only one way - by being loved forth.
"Can a person implant love in the heart of another? No. "
Then Christ was a failure???
Sail on... sail on!!!
dreadpirate How could Christ be a failure simply by loving and giving us a choice to love and accept Him in return? I don't get it. "Splain" it to me.
quiltnmomi Yes, that helped!......I agree with the capacity to choose, being Sister CTR (Choose The Right) and all. I believe love is a choice. And it's best that we get on with the choosing of it!
In case you were wondering.........this is what happens when I'm sick and don't go to church. I spend all day hanging out at quiltnmomi's. I dangerous passtime, I know
Kierkegaard is one of my favorite philosophers of religion. He had a humility and a radicalness rarely found. There is a fantastic piece he wrote that re-frames the Abraham/near-sacrifice of Isaac story. The jist of it is that what the Bible leaves out is the terror of Isaac and the zeal yet self-recrimination of Abraham. Abrahama can't stop himself from being compelled by what he hears God telling him to do, and Isaac, is truly aware that his earthly father is bent on killing him. But then God comes to the aid of each of them, first by giving Isaac the insight that his Heavenly Parent is always with him, always loving him, always suffering or going through whatever emotion he himself is going through on earth, and therefore Isaac is not alone and DOES have a father who loves him (God). Then God abruptly stops the whole terrible event by preventing Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death. Thus each of them, in language each could understand, is dramatically reminded that they are loved and favored from God. But Kierkegaard, in his inimitable way, certainly writes his interpretation from the point of view of Isaac. Understandably so--Kierkegaard had had a similar experience of disappointment with his own father, who had committed suicide, and this event is said to have always effected Kierkegaard, and who wouldn't understand why? !! Another thing about Kierkegaard that impresses me so is that he believed he was striving to become a Christian; he didn't really classify himself as one in the sense that triumphal born-agains or low-key, baptized-as-infants-or-children-type, always-been-Christians-type churchgoers do. He saw "becoming" as the journey and reaching perfection as the goal. This is very similar to the doctrine of English Anglican priest John Wesley, founder of the Methodist faith, and I learned my appreciation of Kierkegaard most profoundly through a dear English Methodist pastor I once had the privilege of serving a church with. Blessings, Claudia
Going back on something that Belindaann38 alluded to, how can you love and forgive someone has destroyed the happiness of a child...or caused a child to live in fear and dread? Or, how can you forgive someone who has beaten to death a baby? (These are not all personal experiences...but some of them are.)
If there is a way to forgive people like this, then I would like to hear your advice - because in all of my 48 years on Earth, I have never felt it in my heart to forgive people who destroy the light in others.
Just one thing more, now that I've perused the other comments...Kierkegaard may be talking in the piece you lift up about how persons are to strive to love one another as God loves each of us. I have that kind of love from my husband, and I strive to love him like that in return. It is an abiding love that does not leave his heart, nor mine, despite the twists and turns and changes and stabilizations that come in and out of our lives together. This is the "steadfast love", or "hesed" as it is pronounced in ancient Hebrew, that David wrote about so frequently in the Psalms. It is a radical love that many people resist accepting, let alone understanding.
Great blog!!!! I will leave all the comments to those that can understand exactly what it means...I must honestly admit reading items such as this makes me feel quite inadequate....if that tells you how stupid I am....Intellectual I am not.. sadly I must admit....but I can say that I do like your way of thinking on most subjects....I just dropped by to tell you that I hope you
love
Tina
Beautiful blog. Reading it gave me the almost uncontrollable urge to burst out into a little Les Miserables: "...to love another person is to see the face of God!!" Which I think is a quote from a philosopher but I can't be sure at the moment hehe. But in any case, thanks for sharing with us - it's good to be reminded of things like this every once in a while.
Hey, quiltnmomi, am I losing my mind, or did you delete your comment to me and Daff? I could have sworn there was a comment you made that I commented on in my last comment and now it's vanished! You shouldn't do things like that to a 40+ year old woman........
Perhaps I'm getting alheiziemers, or however you spell that.........I forget 
You always write such thought provoking blogs!
stuff to ponder for sure... i'd surely love to be loved in that way (not in spite of but together with my faults...). I love the concept.
Sister -
I did delete the comment to you and Daff. After I put it up, I had second thoughts, was afraid I'd gotten too preachy. lol. Sorry about that, didn't mean to mess with you.
oh great, what's up with that? you preachin' to me and I miss it?
o/
God Bless - Dale
Okay, I'm becoming very frustrated! Xanga keeps eating my comments and redirecting me to an error page. Grrrr! I was saying though....just in response to what Kierkegaard wrote, the situation between the two artists kind of reminds me of the whole "is the glass half empty or half full" debate. I know it sounds trite and idealistic, but if more people had the same view as the second artist, and less like the first, it really would be a much happier world. People have this tendency to look at others as though they expect to see bad or be disappointed in them, and it's very sad. I try to look for the beauty in everyone, because I feel that almost everyone has that inside them. People have flaws and imperfections, but that doesn't make them imperfect--it just makes them human. and worthy of being loved.
SisterCTR...
THINK about it longer than three seconds!
Sail on... sail on!!!
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