'Stay me with flaggons,

Comfort me with apples: for I am sick with Love.' --Song of Songs

My good heavens. I'm reading parts of St. Bernard's commentary on the Song of Songs, and I just noticed that someone left the goofiest mean comment (anonymously) on the Barnes and Noble post. Fascinating timing, as with everything these days. Anyway, I approved it and let it in because I think it is interesting - not to mention troubling - when people are so angry that they will use any forum available to them just to get rid of one tiny piece of that venom. As though there were some literal, physical store of it, like a bank account into which and from which quantities could be put and taken. If I could spend it all, in other words, I could deplete the account and finally return to civil and friendly interactions. In emptying it I might be again made whole.

Of course it doesn't really work that way. We don't lose our anger by throwing it around as much as we can, by dishing it out to everyone who crosses our path. There isn't an actual, finite amount of it for us to shepherd or amass interest or over-limit charges on. Frankly, it builds within us the more we live in it and the more we give in to seeing the world as one filled with enemies. And unity, even in small doses, even among small groups, can seem overwhelmingly daunting when you really try to absorb the fact that even the genuine and good-willed still ineluctably see the world only through one pair of eyes. Still, telling strangers to go kill themselves does seem a bit extreme in the other direction. Even if the stranger does dislike 80s pop icons Billy Joel and Elton John.

And I think it is obvious that there is so much more loneliness and anomie in the world now than was ever even possible before. People are disconnected, often isolated much of the time -- and how can I see someone as my brother when I haven't even met him? Maybe it is a leap, but equally so is seeing the stranger as the enemy and reacting in that manner.

I was actually going to write something about this the other day, but I couldn't find a way to make it not sappy. With Mr./Ms. Anonymous as inspiration, however, I can give it a try. My point was going to be about the fairly amazing day-to-day consequences of vigorously trying to keep love and respect in the forefront when dealing with other people. Some of us believe a reward will come in the next stage of life if we treat others well in this one, but we can choose to have a very different sort of life right here by opening up our hearts now and trying to act out of love.

I'm not even referring to any grandiose schemes, or recognizable 'acts of mercy' per se. Just being nice, basically. Not taking your frustration with a bad sleep into your interaction with the bank teller. Stopping for every pedestrian. Letting the right-turn guy merge without resistance. Asking the waiter where he got his watch, the neighbor how his rebuilt Triumph is coming. Sending an email to a store manager because the clerk was extra helpful. Refusing to tailgate the slow old lady in the Lincoln. And then actually thinking about why it is old ladies drive slowly, and imagining what your own world will be like when you yourself are eighty.

This is where it gets sappy, and I don't have the skill to make it otherwise. The fact is, if you take just one day of assiduously being nice to everyone you encounter, it will be an amazing day for you. If when someone goes on about something in a way that seems stupid, or excessive, or so alien to your own understanding, you might genuinely try to read what is behind it, why that person needs to say it, and is saying it in that particular way - not only will your blood pressure drop and you stop rolling your eyes, but you will know more about yourself as well as the other person. You will also have the additional opportunity to think about why you were given that experience at that time, and thus the chance to take even more from it. And you will come home at the end of the day satisfied and full and happy, having had twenty or thirty truly human, truly pleasant and enriching encounters with other people. Sappy, perhaps, but completely true!

Anyway, here is one pretty gorgeous thing St. Bernard had to say about love, which is far better than anything I could hope to write and not sappy in the slightest:

'Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it.'