Sabbath Devotional :: Alma and Agape

Photo by sixteen-miles-out on Unsplash.com

During my first couple of years of college, I worked at the campus bookstore café. I learned to make lattes I would never drink myself and I also discovered that deep cleaning was a soothing experience for me. The café manager Sharon (not her real name) was not a student at the university, but a middle-aged mom who worked full time to manage all the student workers and keep the place running. She could be quite difficult to work with and seemed to take pleasure in holding some sort of authority over us. She was inflexible, often demanding, and just not very fun to work for.

I was a young freshman, and this sort of boss presented a new challenge. So, I did the best thing I could think of and prayed about how to manage this job that was important to me – it was paying for my books and some of my living expenses, in addition to providing a significant discount on textbooks.

The answer to my prayer came rather quickly the following week. I observed that as Sharon was leaving work for the day, she secretly took the bag of recycling with her, ostensibly so that she could sell the cans and collect money for them. A number of things clicked for me at that moment – she probably did not make very much money managing the cafe, she had a family to support, and she had to oversee a group of (sometimes disrespectful) undergrad and graduate students who were on track to out-earn her by many multiples. I needed the job to pay for textbooks; she needed the job to feed a family. A bag of aluminum cans meant enough to her that she was willing to risk being seen and talked about by her team.

In the decades since then, I have often thought about this experience with gratitude that the answer to my prayer was empathy rather than a specific solution. Especially since I am a very analytical, solutions-driven person who is often perplexed by human behavior! This empathetic approach has served me well in other relationships, at work or otherwise, when I find myself confused by or even angry at another person. I try to default to thinking about how they might be experiencing our relationship in the context of their current life situation. Without excusing bad behavior, it allows me to interrogate my own contributions to a difficult exchange while elevating the humanity of the other person.

Another lens for looking at this experience is particularly relevant during this week when we celebrate Valentine’s Day. “Agape”, as described by Martin Luther King, Jr., is a type of love that contains an “understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men.” I have been drawn back to this topic over and over again in my MWEG devotionals, several of which were inspired by Dr. King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies” hyperlinked above. Over three years ago, I wrote about an “infinite loop of agape” that was beginning to form in my soul.

Since then, I have continued my study of this topic, which feels like a worthy endeavor for a person who works full time in politics in a world that feels increasingly divided and hostile. I have lots of material to work with! I have wanted to find different ways of thinking and talking about agape, in order to both deepen my personal understanding and hopefully persuade others to come along with me on this spiritual journey.

I have found that the two most effective ways to increase an agape-like love in my own heart are to repent/experience the Atonement of Christ and to actively work at loving my enemies. Both bring me closely to God and nudge me closer to the sort of “abiding” that we read about in the scriptures. The first involves a deeply personal accounting of my own sins that, if done properly, leads me towards an agape-driven forgiveness for those that hurt me as I wrote about 18 months ago. And I have inched closer to understanding the second by using a prominent Book of Mormon figure as a guide.

In her Brief Theological Introduction to Alma 1-29, BYU’s Kylie Turley presents us with an in-depth look at Alma the Younger. Diving deep into the text, she spends time trying to better understand and paint a picture of pre-conversion Alma, who is described in Mosiah 27:8 as an “unbeliever”, who did “speak much flattery” to the people, and a “very wicked and idolatrous man”. I find Turley’s assertion that “understanding Alma’s very wicked beliefs and practices makes him more realistic, his repentance more miraculous, and his redemption more hopeful” to be a very compelling one. “Discerning his wickedness” provides an “empathetic basis for discerning the pain behind his interactions, motivations, and relationships.” (all quotes from page 20)

Which leads me back to how this applies to loving our enemies. When I am struggling to have an agape-like love for someone who is playing the role of the enemy in my life, I now think about Alma as a stand-in. Alma’s failures, sins, and deep wickedness likely filled a good portion of his life, but the majority of his appearances in the Book of Mormon are that of a humble, committed disciple who works tirelessly to teach others of Christ. As Turley describes on page 18: “It is always the right time to begin living a life in God’s time.” While we don’t know every detail of Alma’s life, we know that he made that choice to begin a life in God. Which leads me to conclude that even the most “villainous” people in my life have the potential to do the same.

Seeing others in this way is a gift, both to myself and my “neighbor-enemies”. It increases the agape between us, it frees me from the tension that comes from unrighteous judgment, and I hope it allows me to be a more creative and generous human. It, of course, does not preclude protecting myself or others from harm, but it does release me from the pattern of perpetual heartache that can come from replaying wrongs over and over again in my mind.

While my life has not been a constant series of empathetic moments like that I had with Sharon almost 30 years ago, there have been just enough of them strewn about to make me crave more. I never regret praying to get a deeper glimpse of someone’s humanity and I always feel a wonderful warmth of agape in my soul when my prayer is answered.

Note regarding video: Astute readers of Sabbath devotionals will note that lately I have been trying to include a video of me at my piano that goes along with the devotional. This is mostly because I have always felt more comfortable expressing myself through music than words. Tonight’s pairing is a Brahms Intermezzo, Op. 118, No 2. It has such a tender melody that really envelopes me as I play it, much in the way that the gentle warmth of agape does.