Dream Love vs. Active Love

Maybe it's partially a mom thing, but my impulse when faced with problems is to figure out what can be done to make things better. As a mom, you learn quickly to solve your child's problems and answer their needs. Such is the utter helplessness of the human newborn, if you didn't learn to do this, your baby wouldn't even survive. But this parental impulse to help and protect goes way beyond feeding and swaddling.

I still remember the paradigm shift I experienced after the birth of my first child; when she was two months old, I walked into a resale clothing store in search of a pair of jeans. I found a decent pair, but then suddenly wondered if my baby would get what she needed if I bought myself these pants. It was a reasonable doubt; both my husband and I were graduate students and our cash flow was a trickle. That day in a tiny resale shop, a new resolution entered my soul--I had to live differently in order to give my child a better life. I had to think of her needs first. So I didn't buy the jeans for $8.

I know. Let the mom awards roll in.

But my impulse to protect, solve, and generally make things better has been challenged by the events of 2020. The problems lately seems so far, FAR beyond my sphere of influence. 

Also, if my efforts to be the solution for my kids are ultimately as trivial as foregoing the $8 jeans, how can I possibly be part of the solution to huge, complex problems like a pandemic, racial injustice, and deepening enmity between groups of people?

I can't be alone in feeling the smallness of my ability to change anything. Does anyone else feel the futility of their genuine efforts to be a solution to the big problems of the wide world? Like nothing you can do will make much of a difference? But also like you had better do something because the worst thing is to do nothing at all?

As I mulled over my own futility recently, a passage from literature came to mind. This past semester, I read some of Nikolay Gogol's Selected Passages from a Correspondence with my students. Gogol is best known for his short story "The Overcoat," and we read that as well as a letter to a friend in which Gogol meditates upon what Easter Sunday means to the Russians of the nineteenth century. He writes, "this day fits our nineteenth century, when thoughts about the happiness of mankind have almost become the favorite thoughts of all people, when embracing all of humanity, like our brothers, has become the favorite dream of the young people; when many people fantasize only about how to transform all of humanity."

Nineteenth-century Russia sounds a bit like twenty-first century America. Problems abounded then as they do now. In 1847 when Gogol wrote this letter, serfs were still "attached" to the land owned by the wealthy. Revolutionary stirrings were being felt across Europe and Russia as activists pushed back against repressive regimes. Gogol lived at a time when there were great dreams about the possibilities of greater human happiness and harmony.

There may have been a bit more optimism about the future of humankind when Gogol wrote this letter, but I think we share a general dream of brotherhood and see human happiness as a desirable goal. Perhaps unlike current day agitations for change, Gogol ties these ideals to Christianity, which he says is not living up to its claims. He writes that on Easter Sunday all "the Christian strivings" are shown to be pale because "people are ready to embrace all of mankind as a brother, but will not embrace their brother." Gogol claims that real Christian love is not arrogant or exclusive, and Easter Sunday is the day to remember "all people are brothers belonging to the same family."

Gogol's ideas on brotherhood are a theme picked up by later Russian writers: there is an all-too-common willingness to love all of humanity coupled with a refusal to love the individual person confronting you at the moment.

In Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov one wealthy woman confesses that "I love mankind so much that . . . I sometimes dream of giving up all that I have, of leaving . . . to become a sister of mercy." But the holy man she is speaking to tells her that "active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching . . . Whereas active love is labor and perseverance."

Dostoevsky is onto something here. (Again. I love this guy.)

Love in dreams is performative. Whatever form it takes, it is quickly done and quickly praised. It gratifies the giver. It garners attention.

Active love is hard work done over much time. It is directed at and embraces the person next to you. The needy person. The little person. The ignorant person. The wrong person. The demanding, smelly, or ugly person.

Here's what I find comforting about these Russian authors and their ideas about dream love and active love: active love is not necessarily big or impressive. It can be as small and seemingly insignificant as foregoing the $8 jeans so you have enough money to buy onesies and diapers. (But notice that I went and ruined that silly incident by telling you all about and thus turning it into a performance.) Active love isn't about feeling a certain way or doing what's expected or desired of you. But it changes things, and anybody can do it.

Maybe the very smallness of active love is what makes it transformative. This is not to say there is never a time and place for grand gestures and sweeping change. I happen to think that we are in desperate need of some big changes right now! But those big changes are mostly outside of my sphere of influence, whereas the mundane everyday discipline of loving the brother or the sister right in front of me is definitely something I can do . . . and that kind of love changes things. This change is small, often unseen at first, and usually doesn't bring anybody any accolades.

You know my deeply ingrained impulse to solve all the problems? The impulse that I might have developed as I've been a mother to needy little people? I think I have to learn to let it go when it comes to the big, complex problems of 2020. I think that my "I can be the solution!" impulse is distracting me from the reality that the only people I can actively love are the people I know and have around me.

As the physical distancing due to coronavirus drags on, I find that the circle of people within my active love sphere is smaller right now that usual. The smallness of the circle can make me feel like my efforts to love genuinely don't matter that much now--even less than they ever did.

But these Russian authors remind me that just like one small stone dropped into the water makes a series of ever larger concentric circles, so every action tends outward in its consequences. And who knows where the ripple from my actions will end? I certainly don't. So what if my attempts to be sacrificial and helpful and loving seem trivial or insignificant? It's not for me to decide the ultimate impact of my actions. 

A few nights ago at the dinner table, I was sort of zoning out while my husband was talking to our three girls about nominalism. I'm no philosopher, but as I understand it philosophical nominalism holds that what is real is each individual thing itself rather than any universal or abstract entities that might exist outside of or "above" tangible things. This was the dinner conversation. Seriously. Are you surprised I zoned out? Evan was trying to demonstrate to the girls that there are many ways to challenge the notion of the existence of universal ideals. Kind of important, but sort of heavy for dinner conversation. I focused on keeping the four-year-old boy using his napkin rather than his shirt. But I zapped back to attention to the conversation when I noticed Evan was using this topic to point out to the girls that in fact our words have real, true meanings--meanings that we need to pay attention to, and the way that we use our words is one of the most important ways we show our love to others.

That very day I had been in kind of a pit of not knowing what do say or do or think about the events swirling around that are so far out of my control. And here my husband was unknowingly addressing my worries: use your words! Pay attention to your words. Use fewer words. Use kinder words. Choose words with care. Forego using any words at all when you realize you've begun to lose sight of the person those words are directed at.

Maybe a lot of you are in a place kind of like I am: looking out at the larger world, not knowing what to do but wanting to do something to begin to solve some of the problems. It's not my place to tell others how to do that because everyone has different opportunities and influences in their community, however big or small that community is. But if you're casting around, trying to figure out where to start, I'd just suggest two things: 1) eschew dream love for the harder labor of active love, and 2) see your words, whether written or spoken, as one of the major ways that you show others love.