Love Your Enemies

    Whew! This one hits home, I think. Can we honestly break down who and what our enemies are? Is the list too long?

    For the believers in God in the world, like me, there is the Adversary Himself. Satan. We are not supposed to love him, I do not think. Respect his evil powers, but not love. We recognize that he is the Enemy of Enemies, because he lies and distorts and wishes to do us harm. So, knock that one off the list.

    What else? Who else? What enemies are out there, that plague us or vex us, make us fall and trip?

    Sloth, or laziness, which can derive from apathy, are certainly enemies to many of us. I have suffered from this one. How to stay motivated, how to stay locked in on task? How to constantly care to do and follow up on all the work and labor and missions that we are meant to accomplish? Are we supposed to love these metaphysical enemies? I think not. Hate, antipathy, of laziness and other bad traits is a better tack, yes? We should disdain and avoid all the major, and most of the minor, sins and bad habits. Greed. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. I know there are a few more. We are not supposed to love these anti-virtues, but they are vices and impersonal enemies. We need to learn to overcome and disdain these vices, sins, and bad traits.

    What about personal enemies? Now we may be getting somewhere. Some physical things become personal, like say, cancer and other sicknesses and maladies. Mental illness, unemployment, wars, pestilences, catastrophes, accidents. There are many corporal enemies that we cannot avoid. We are supposed to love these enemies of humans and nature, but endure them.

    So, what enemies do we love? Our mortal enemies that threaten our lives, who wish to commit crimes and harm against us? Okay, we can love them to a certain degree.

    What other enemies do we have? The greedy or ambitious merchants and scammers that take our time and our hard-earned money? The government legislators and executives.

    Sometimes judges, or lawyers, or law enforcement may seem unfair or unusually unjust.

    Bosses and colleagues can become our enemies, unfortunately.

    Neighbors or others that we trust, may betray us or anger us, insult us. Perfect strangers can do this.

    Family members, or those friends or cohorts that we trust, or are led to trust, can become our enemies in some fashion or method.

    We, ourselves, can be our own worst enemy! Of course! We have to learn to love and forgive ourselves.

    We must love our enemies.

    Who are your enemies? Can you love them? Forgive them? 

    I can grow resentment towards many. We have to learn to unlearn the hate, and develop the love.