In this is love…—Blog - Acts Two Fellowship — Christian Fellowship at UC Berkeley | Christian Fellowship on the UC Berkeley Campus | Student Club Group at Berkeley | Acts Two Fellowship — Christian Fellowship at UC Berkeley (a2f)

Almost every year in elementary school, my parents would buy packs of pre-made, Disney-themed cards for me to assemble and hand out to all of my classmates on Valentine’s Day. I’d walk up to each classmate and hand-deliver the cards to each desk, and many of my other classmates would do the same. This might sound a bit cringe-y for those of us with low tolerance for cheesiness, but honestly, this was one of my favorite things about Valentine’s Day as a kid (perhaps only second to the candy and chocolates we ate in laughable amounts).

I thought it was awesome to experience that collective, almost utopian outpouring of thoughtfulness toward one another, where each person in class would feel, or, at the very least, have a physical reminder, that someone had thought about him, someone had remembered her.

Maybe I’m reminiscing about this through an overly nostalgic lens, but I can’t help it as I look around now, and it seems that February 14th has morphed into something that’s a bit more polarizing.

Valentine’s Day plays on the insecurity of being disregarded. Underneath the barrage of love songs and cards is the assumption that life truly begins once you find “the one”. And so you can either be either happy or a little resentful on Valentine’s Day, when the fact that you are or are not receiving regard and attention becomes particularly pronounced.

Feelings of loneliness might get easily alleviated by friends or family for some, but there are others who don’t have it as easy. They are alone not only during Valentine’s Day, but for the majority of the year: major holidays and birthdays pass without a single visitor, and days like Valentine’s Day can deepen the loneliness.

The latest National Poll on Healthy Aging reports that one third of seniors in the United States are lonely. Researchers from the University of Michigan surveyed about 2,000 Americans ages 50 to 80, and more than a third of seniors in the poll said they felt a lack of companionship at least some of the time, and 27% said they sometimes or often felt “isolated”.

Every year, our church participates in Valentine’s Day of Compassion. We visit nursing homes to share God’s love with the elderly, who are often forgotten on a holiday that highlights exclusive, romantic love. The reality of loneliness at these homes can be overwhelming. There was one year I talked with a gentleman who repeatedly mentioned missing his family, who he only saw a couple times a year. I learned that he didn’t have many friends at the nursing home, since many of the other residents were bedridden, and his wife had passed away a few years ago. Toward the end of our conversation, my friend and I asked if we could pray for him. He previously shared that he didn’t believe in God or prayers, but he said yes. As we began wrapping up our visit and let him know we had to leave, tears began to fill his eyes. “Don’t go,” he said, reaching out to us. I felt sheepish and helpless, aware there wasn’t much we could do for him at that moment or any promises we could make to stay. After our visit, it dawned on me that we might have been one of the few people he had spoken with at length in a while.

In his essay The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes:

“There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

Each VDOC, I’m reminded that God’s love is for everyone. I often judge people based on personality and outer appearance, but God is so different. Each person is infinitely precious in God’s eyes. From the very beginning of the Bible we learn that God takes people “seriously” in the way that C.S. Lewis describes it. God created us, and he’s the one that affirms us and says, “I see you. I remember you.” We receive the affirmation we crave from God, who deeply loves us. And he loves us not just at our best but also when we’re not very lovable at all.

These realities have hit a little more deeply as I’ve visited these nursing homes the past few years and become more aware of that tension between my values and truths I claim to believe. If God is real, then there is much more to this life than the physical things I see with my eyes, each person more than a face and a body...it’s immortals at the center of my day to day interactions, immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. Despite the facade of youth or things we feel so entitled to (including romance and a certain picture of marriage), we’re all marching toward death. Each year we do VDOC, I’m again faced with the questions, “What is life? Who are we? Where does God fit in?”

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

We didn’t love God first. God took the initiative and met us, showing us radical compassion, the kind that brings healing even to deep insecurities. His love wasn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling or even expressions of empathy, but it was embodied. How? Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We were loveless toward God, yet he died for us.

It turns out that fuzzy feelings of love, even in the best relationships, run out. I’ve learned that the most beautiful manifestations of love look a lot like the compassion God shows us, getting close even when you don’t want to, don’t feel like it. It means loving the least of these. And I hope that this is the kind of love we’d be able to demonstrate and testify to the immortals in our midst.