Why can’t every person be worthy of love? Why do people have to segregate, to divide up those they feel are worthy from those they feel should be left to die alone? Yes, there are heinous people who have existed, who do exist, and who will exist, but if we only tried to offer love to those people we like, what good does love do other than reinforce a caste system where the one resource that is infinite is hoarded to keep it from reaching outsiders?
What other purpose is there to love than reaching out to the broken in spirit, the misunderstood, the chronically ill, the poor, the wretched, the lost, the shunned, and the jaded? We talk about the power of love, but refuse to make use of it. It’s easy to love someone cheery, and kind. It is much more difficult to see someone who has committed terrible transgressions and say “I will extend love to them, because they, too, should have the chance to be loved.”
I’ve been told repeatedly that I’m wrong for offering love to everyone, that not everyone is worthy of love. These people tell me this like it’s something I can control, firstly, and secondly that it’s something I would wish to hoard away. For me, love is kind of like how money works: if you’re just sitting on it rather than investing it, you’re just letting it go to waste, and allowing others who need it desperately to suffer needlessly because of it.
I cannot hide that love, and I cannot turn it off to keep others from receiving it. Love is as vital as food, and water. It nourishes us where food and water can’t possibly reach. Kindness, compassion, generosity, empathy, these are the telltale traits of love, of something that can reach across every barrier, and turn cold hearts warm. Not everyone will accept it, that is true, but everyone is worthy of receiving it. I will not withhold it like some angry parent punishing a spoiled child. Love is not something you play with, it’s not something you punish people with. I find that to be the ultimate cruelty, to play with someone’s heart and treat love like a privilege rather than a necessity.
I believe everyone is worthy of love.
I believe everyone is capable of redemption.
I believe every person is my brother, my sister, my kindred spirit.
To deny that is to deny being human.
It is to deny being myself, and I cannot do that any longer.
I love you. You are loved. Do not forget it.
If there is one certainty in your life, even if you sit in the dark prison cell, or are lost in a sea of uncaring people, you are still loved.