David McElroy

Larry was 17 years old in 1974. He had lied about his age to get his first job, working at a steel fabrication shop. As he approached his 18th birthday, he had been working for nearly six months. Getting a loan to buy an inexpensive used car changed his life.

Race relations weren’t great between blacks and whites in Birmingham in 1974. Larry had started his education in all-black schools and then been part of integration, something that had been very controversial and at times confrontational. It was a time and place when many black people and many white people were suspicious of one another.

Larry’s attitude toward white people was guarded and suspicious. Who can blame him for feeling that way? He knew that many white people around him didn’t want him as part of their society. His attitudes hardened because of small battles, too. When he was in high school, the principal told him he had to shave off his afro or leave the school — so he transferred to a vocational school rather than comply.

By the time Larry had that first job, he was wondering whether a young black man could get a break from a society that had been dominated by racist white men. And then he needed to buy a car.

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Ted Cruz broke his promise to support whoever won the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton lied regularly about the circumstances surrounding her private email server (and many other things).

Somebody on the Donald Trump campaign lifted some ideas and phrases from a speech which was performed by Michelle Obama four years ago.

Bernie Sanders spent the last year telling us what an evil candidate Clinton is and now he tells his voters to support her.

In all four cases, I say, “So what?”

I hear some Republicans today screaming bloody murder that Cruz didn’t endorse Trump when Cruz spoke at the convention in Cleveland Wednesday night. On the other hand, people who hate Trump and are eager to see him embarrassed are calling Cruz principled for telling Republicans they ought to vote their conscience. Almost everyone seems to see the matter through the lens of what he wants to happen in November.

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I don’t really know how to love human beings.

Not really. I can love those who are a lot like me and those who treat me well. That’s easy. I don’t know how to love those who seem unlovable to me.

It’s easy for me to condemn people with hateful attitudes, especially those among them who call themselves Christians. It’s easy for me to look down on them and say, “You have no idea how to love other people. What’s wrong with you?”

But when I’m honest with myself, I realize it’s easy to love people in theory. It’s easy to read the words of Jesus and realize very clearly that it’s my responsibility to love everyone — those who aren’t like me, those who treat me poorly, those who are my enemies, even those who cut me off in traffic and leave me seething like an idiot with bad priorities.

What’s not so easy is putting love for others into practice. I realized recently that I’m still not certain what it would look like for me to genuinely love those I’d rather not love. I’m not even certain I always want to love the all-too-real people around me.

But I had an epiphany recently about loving the unlovable — and it’s left me wondering whether we’ve missed the entire point of loving others. What if the people who are changed for the better by our loving other people isn’t those others?

What if we’re the real beneficiaries of learning to love? What if real transformation of the heart and mind isn’t even possible without learning that kind of love?

What if learning to love others is what saves us from ourselves?

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