Love the Hell out of You

Encountering Jesus Christ at Hallmark

I didn’t expect to run into the equivalent of a theological expletive while browsing my local hallmark store. One would expect the plenty of expressions of love and care and hope, and compassion floating around that store. I expect the cushy expressions of the transformative power of love. But on this most recent jaunt, I saw something dramatically different.

On the top shelf of a center display case there stood a wooden block, featuring weathered block lettering, exclaiming in all capital letters…

“I love the hell outta you”

This is a casual phrase that I’ve heard often, but for some reason it struck me differently this time. Maybe it was seeing it in print. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of this phrase next to the one on the wooden block behind it. I’m not sure. Either way, it got me thinking. What does it really mean to love the hell out of someone?

I believe in the reconciling power of love experienced in relationship with people. That in the journey toward reconciliation, we find transformation. Said another way, as we come to discover how we can be with each other and in the world around us with loving interactions, we change – our world changes.

So let’s journey a bit with the proposition of this wooden block.

Let’s assume that whomever is speaking here is saying that they, their disposition, giving, and acts of love toward the recipient, take the hell out of the recipient. Well, that must mean that there is a little bit of hell inside that recipient. Well, that warrants a pause.

I know it isn’t a very nice thing to say that there is a little bit of hell inside someone that you love, so let’s define hell briefly. If heaven is the place where God is, then one way I like to think of hell is the place where God isn’t. It is the place where good things can’t happen; where love can’t exist; where all the evils of the world thrive without any resistance. While this may sound like a physical place, hell can also describe an internal formation. And since we are physical beings, this internal formation expresses itself in our physical reality.

Think of what happens when trust – a function of loving relationships – is destroyed, or thought not to be possible. A person interacting in relationships based on trust is very different than a person interacting in relationships without any trust. On a communal level children might be taught by protective and diligent parents that others are not trustworthy. This, in an effort to prepare their children for a world of evil. These children grow up to be predisposed to govern their interactions by the assumption of manipulation or malice rather than the good of the other. Their “world” becomes organized around the idea that all people lie (the real evil that exists) rather than the fact that at some people don’t (the reality that also exists).

The stereotype of the used car salesman is an artifact of such thinking.

A world in which everyone lies, as one example, is hell. The lack of safety experienced in such a world, on the individual and communal level, would send us hurling towards destruction.

The other end of the spectrum is heaven – a place where everyone is honest. Knowing that the only way to really love is to have and express a conception of truth. Imagine a world in which business transactions, political negotiations, and interpersonal relationships were governed by honesty rather than manipulation.

To get there someone has to start. Maybe someone decides to love whomever they are interacting with enough to be honest with them. They might have to go further and encourage honesty out of the the other person. Here there is an important point. Once the honesty comes, it is extremely important to accept the honesty, and engage with it honestly, regardless of what the statement is.

Imagine a parent responding to a teenager who just yelled, “I hate you,” with some of the following:

“Why do you hate me right now?”

“I know. Is there something more behind that you want to say?”

“Do you hate me just right now, or forever?”

I know. Reasoning with a teenager is considered to be the path of fools. But when delivered without any anger on the part of the parent, these questions have some potency to change the interaction, and the inner landscape of the teen as they grow. Left to their own devices the teen might come to know that the world is one in which they have to fight for what they want. Everyone, including their own parents are against them. They might learn that the best way to operate is to lash out. However, with loving interactions, a crossing of the will can turn into a conversation. Within relationships governed by love, the teen can learn to inquire about what is running their inner world, rather than simply lash out with hate when things don’t go their way.

This is but one small example. Of course, there are many more. The friend that thinks everyone is against them. The brother that can’t stop themselves from gossip. The sister that is overly imposing. There are aspects to these dispositions that are internal, and a function of a formation lacking love in a particular area.

There is a rub.

I haven’t yet found a living person who can sustain the perfect outpouring of love that is required for transformation. They will fall short of the need of whomever is in front of them. In the moment that their love falls short, there is the risk of reverting to our prior ways. We might think, “It was nice to experience that kind of love for a while, but it isn’t really real. So, forget about it. It’s safer for me to not engage.”

Trust is lost. Hope is lost. The possibility of heaven on earth is lost. At least in that moment.

There is another way.

The person from whom love emanates matters. The proposition of Jesus Christ is precisely what this poignant wooden block exclaims. That in relationship with him – the one who can’t but love – whatever hell is in us will have to come out. Part of the growing closeness between us and Christ is the ongoing unveiling of how far from perfection we are, how much he loves us in the midst of that distance, what he has done to close the gap, and the guidance he offers as we come to want to shift. These are all things that we discover along the way – notably not things we “do.”

What we can do is find ways to organize our life around communion and communication with him – as we might with the people that we love. In doing so, we open ourselves up to a restructuring of our lives. We open ourselves up to having the hell loved out of us.