Thinking some more about love and hate
We sat down to play Hygge, a Scandinavian conversation game. It shouldn’t work! ‘How do you win? It’s just a load of questions with no answers’ are the confused cries that go up! I share the cynicism, playing only because I’ve had a large meal and don’t have the energy to leave. Then my question comes…
“What’s the best motivator; love, hate or money?”
In an instant I realise the allure of the game. The questions are brilliant! I’m compelled to answer and in answering, begin inadvertently unwrapping the complexities of human life. Not in a boring ‘stuck in a lecture room’ kind of way but in a joyful liberating banter explosion I’m happy to be a part of!
It’s love right?
But just as I shape my lips to speak my brain engages and I pause. First I need to work out the context in which to answer the question. Is this what best motivates me, or what best motivates people generally? If I ask this out loud do I look silly? Is it already explicit in the question and I’ve just missed it? If it’s what motivates me, whether it’s true or not the answer must be love. But as I start to arrange my lips to form the ‘L’ sound expecting the word love to follow, my head goes to the many day dreams involving me magically attaining great wealth and the many times I’m motivated by a dislike for someone else. It’s not clear cut. Before I get any words out, others have jumped in and there’s a melee of noise. We’re playing Hygge.
One simple question and my family and a few friends are tearing into the fabric of society and scratching around our own souls to pass the time. Shortly we’ll be playing Mario Kart and holding in farts like normal people who entertain guests, but for now we’re philosophers and theologians making great strides for humanity. I’m still not sure how to play but think I must be losing because though there’s great activity in my head no words are coming out!
Love, hate and money. Huge motivators for humans. Under our skin. Shaping our lives. Forming our thoughts.
The romantic poets were right about love, all you need is love. The capitalists were on point about money; it makes the world go round, we all get in a spin about it. And it’s not just radicals that are motivated by hate… hate fuels huge chunks of society and gets under everyone's’ skin at some point!
We should probably stop and think about this more often!
John knew this! He mentions love and hate countless times in one letter! He goes out of his way to cause people to stop and think about these traits more deeply. To consider whether they might be bigger concepts than we thought. But more critically; to consider where they come from, what it means that they exist and what our experience of them says about us… about our beliefs!
If anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them — 2:5
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness — 2:9
See what great love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are — 3:1
Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters if the world hates you — 3:13
We know that we have passed from death into life because we love each other — 3:14
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us — 3:16
Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth — 3:18
Our new series is called Just Walk — we’re exploring the idea that there’s a way to walk justly through this world in which we’re so rigorously pulled around by the concepts of love and hate.
That their very presence means something. That there’s a way to look at the whole thing that’ll help you get through, even thrive.
‘Love is the best motivator’ I said with least conviction and with no accompanying argument that might score me points in the game. “Now let’s get Mario Kart on, I hate this game and I’ll do anything not to play it, tenner for the winner.”
Ash Gibson, Pastor Christchurch Xscape
