Loving your Neighbor when you Hate People

I'll admit, I debated about whether or not to write this post.  I was afraid I would end up sounding like a terrible person.  I usually feel really bad when I catch myself feeling this way but... sometimes I'm guilty of saying/thinking:

"Ugh. I hate people."

I mean, I don't really.  I am included in "people" after all, and so are my family and friends.  I love quite a lot of people.  And chances are, if you're a stranger and I spend a few minutes talking and getting to know you, I'm much more likely to feel positively toward you than negatively.  Humans are a social species.  We're just wired that way.

And yet, there are times I find myself hating people in general.  Like when I'm in a traffic jam or a crowded grocery store, and I can't do the thing I have to do because there's people pressing all around and I can't concentrate.  In those situations, I think the real root of what I'm feeling is fear.  I get anxious in very crowded places.  Then there have been times when I've had to deal with people one-on-one who just act very ignorant or entitled (working in customer service I experienced this a lot), and I found myself doing the thing again - ugh I hate people so much.  Sometimes it's something that you feel on an even bigger scale when you hear about terrible things happening in the news.  People are quite capable of doing horrible things, after all: to each other, and to animals, and to the environment in general.  I can't tell you how many times I've read a story online about animal abuse and seen a plethora of comments to the effect of "I hate humans."

The thing is though, I feel really guilty whenever I think this way, because I'm supposed to be loving people, not hating them.  It's not very often that I'll throw out a "proof text" from the Bible, but this one pretty much sums up what I'm called to do:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

— Mark 12:28-31

This is what's known as the Great Commandment in Christianity.  In the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio we've trademarked "Love God, Love Your Neighbor, Change the World."  We have it on bumper stickers and everything.  So yeah, it's important.  One of my heroes, Dorothy Day, once said "I really only love God as much as the person I love the least."  The first time I read that I thought "well, I'm screwed."

What are you supposed to do with people that you just can't get along with?  There's going to be a few people whose personalities just clash with ours, no matter what.  What about people who scare you?  Or who do really terrible things?  How am I supposed to love them?

I found the answer to this question in a number of places, but they all kind of said the same thing.  It's not about feeling love, but about acting in love.

"...I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion.  No.  Not at all.  He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other."

That quote was from a fictional priest.  I found it in probably the most surprising place that one could find a spiritually edifying quote: William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist.  C.S. Lewis said the same thing even more succinctly: "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did."  I guess what this advice amounts to, more or less, is "fake it til you make it."  But the thing is, it's not you that's going to make it, it's the grace of God.  The best quote I found on this subject came across my Facebook feed the other day as I was thinking about how to write this post (thanks Holy Spirit!).  It's from a page called "Ancient Christian Wisdom."


If you find that there is no love in you, but you want to have it, then do deeds of love, even though you do them without love in the beginning. The Lord will see you desire and striving and will put love in your heart.

+ St. Ambrose of Optina

I hope that if you struggle with "hating people" sometimes, you'll find some hope in this.  The biggest thing, I think, is needing to change our mindset about what love is.  It's not just a feeling; it's a verb.  It's an action, and a choice.  You have to continue to make that choice every day, and on the days when it's hardest to do so, that's when it takes an extraordinary amount of love.  It can be done, even if doesn't always feel so great.  I fully believe God sees us struggling to do it and loves us all the more for it (if it's possible for God to love us anymore than God already does).  Your efforts aren't going unnoticed.