“Goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Light is stronger that darkness. Life is stronger than death. Victory is ours through Him who loved us.”
– Desmond Tutu
I recently flew to meet my husband in New York City for an impromptu 48 hours away together. It gave us a chance to reconnect in between two very long business trips. NYC is where we met and fell in love over 25 years ago. It’s a special city for us, as it is for so many that visit or call it home. Living on the opposite coast, we don’t get many opportunities to return to where our story began, so we attempted to fit in as many things as we possibly could during our stay.
It was early December. We walked the streets hand in hand, braving the cold and rain, taking in all the lights and sights of Christmas. We recreated our first date, dining at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. The massive Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center was in all its glory and did not disappoint.
One of the highlights of our trip had to be our late-night carriage ride through Central Park. A bonus to doing so was impressing our twenty something’s back home with photo proof of not just the famous “Friends” fountain, but also the bridge where the infamous snowball fight scene from “Elf” took place. Because if there’s no photo, it didn’t happen . . . right??!
Not a bad itinerary for a Jersey girl, who grew up just 90 miles from NYC, and had never experienced any of those things! But perhaps our most significant stop was in front of the building where we first met. We were both working for the same shoe company in the fashion industry at the time. The company no longer exists, and the building that once housed our offices and showroom was surrounded by scaffolding, preparing itself for its next tenant.
You can always breathe new purpose into an old space, but you can never erase its history. There will always be something so significant about the vessel that once housed our beginning. Each time we are able to make it back, we make sure to get our photo in front of the Crown Building. Rumor has it, 22 luxury apartments are being prepared for some lucky (and wealthy) folks to reside in during the next season of the building’s continuing legacy.
But as for me . . . 730 Fifth Avenue will always represent a real-life Cinderella story, shoes and all, where this girl found the love of her life.
There was, however, one thing we noticed missing during our sightseeing adventures. The iconic “LOVE” sculpture. Until it disappeared , so many people were visiting the landmark on a daily basis that it made it challenging for the locals to get past the crowds. Getting a commemorative photo at the sculpture has been a fan favorite since its creation in 1970 by artist Robert Indiana. So much so that he went on to create 50 variations of “LOVE” all over the world.
But that’s what love does. It multiplies and draws people unto itself.
So, naturally when “LOVE” went missing, it’s not surprising that everyone noticed. It didn’t matter if you were a life-long New Yorker or just in for the weekend like we were. We were expecting to see it. We had come to count on its presence.
But “LOVE” was nowhere to be found.
The “LOVE” sculpture was inspired by Robert Indiana’s childhood faith. Before it was ever a sculpture, however, his original vision was part of a series of paintings. From that collection he created his first “LOVE” in the form of a personal Christmas card in 1964. Just a year later, he was commissioned to create a similar Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The rest is history.
We came to find out, after a quick search online, that the sculpture was not gone forever. It was simply on hiatus for some much-needed cleaning and minor repairs. I couldn’t help but think about how the missing sculpture symbolically represents what seems to be missing in our country today.
Many of us have been left wondering where love has gone.
It’s a legitimate question, considering the way we’ve been treating one another these days. We have picked up some really bad habits, and like any addiction, one of the biggest barriers to healing is denying we even have a problem. We find it much easier to blame others for everything that is wrong in the world. Like the sculpture, our nation is in need of repair. We, too, could use some cleaning up.
Many of us entered into 2020 with a lot of fear and trepidation. We are one nation that is currently divided on so many important issues. Adding to our angst is the fact that we are in an election year. A lot of us are standing around, shell-shocked and surveying the damage that we have already inflicted on one another. It can be paralyzing to think that it’s only January, which potentially gives us a solid 10 months to continue berating one another before election day.
Or we can do something different. We can choose to love.
Just as the artist of the “LOVE” sculpture created a structure inspired by his faith, God created the human race. He did so with two purposes in mind for us. To love Him and love other people. 1 John 4 tells us that God Himself is the very definition of love and that all love comes from Him.
God also used words to share His vision with us of what real love can look like when we love like He does. That vision in defined in 1 Corinthians 13, otherwise known as the “love” chapter. It has been incorporated into countless weddings throughout the years, including my own.
Being God, He knew long before we were born that we weren’t going to be able to love well without Him. Even those who deny His existence benefit from the moral code He has placed in the heart of each of us. A lot of us try and fill that void with things that just leave us broken.
There is simply no substitute for the kind of love only He can give.
He wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. He promised in Jeremiah 29:13 that, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” But the choice is always ours.
While the “LOVE” sculpture is by far Indiana’s most famous piece, John 3:16 is easily the most “famous” verse in the Bible. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
That verse is the culmination of God’s love for us. He knew that there wasn’t any way for us to reconcile our relationship with Him. We were without hope and unable to save ourselves. He couldn’t imagine being without us and knew we needed rescuing. So, He sent us his Son, God in the flesh. He sent us Jesus.
He wanted us to know that hope was on the way.
I find it thoughtful, and simultaneously ironic, that what was chosen to stand in as a temporary replacement for “LOVE” is a statue titled, “Listen“. A local artist, Jim Rennert, created the sculpture in the hopes that people passing by would pause and reflect. The sculpture is of a man, looming life size, holding his index finger to his lips. This is the universal symbol to be quiet and I find it humorous that the bronze man is essentially “shushing” us. The artist was encouraging reflection not censorship. If we refuse to navigate our differences with civility, however, then it seems as if silence would be a pretty good posture until we’re willing to do so.
Pastor Andy Stanley has an amazing 3 part series out right now title, “Talking Points: The Perfect Blend of Politics & Religion”. It is geared toward those of us who call ourselves Christians, but is an incredible blueprint for anyone interested in loving people well regardless of their politics. One of my favorite quotes from the series is as follows:
“When we choose to carry someone’s burden . . . we listen, we learn, and we lean in. When we choose to carry someone’s burden, what divides us diminishes, and what unites us surfaces. We fear less, and we understand more.” – Pastor Andy Stanley
Imagine what would happen if we did less talking and more listening. If we used our time and energy to really get to know people that we assume are so different from us. Loving others like God does honors the humanity in each and every person without conditions. We are created in His image, and it is He who give each of us our value.
It always starts with a relationship, laying a gradual foundation of mutual respect and trust over time. It is in those relationships that we feel safe and heard . . . even when we don’t see eye to eye.
What if we learned to ask really good questions? What if we leaned in to the idea of working to understand who people are, learning firsthand how they have come to feel the way they do about important issues?
Doing so may not change our minds, but it for sure will change our hearts.
No word on when “LOVE” will be back on the corner of 55th and 6th. But unlike the missing sculpture, real love is alive and well, and can always be found by anyone truly seeking to find it. Love is so much more than a feeling. It’s always a choice we make. If we want to see things turn around in this country, we are going to have to want it. Even over wanting to be right.
Beautiful things happen when we align our will with the purposes of God. When we open ourselves up to our Creator’s way of doing things, we fulfill the unique purposes for which we were put on this earth. To see that happen, we are going to have to let Him change our hearts. We do that by saying “yes” to God and respond to His loving us by loving Him back. We don’t have to change our opinions, our beliefs, or our political parties to love others well.
But we do have to choose to love people like God does.
The same God that reconciled our relationship to Him wants to heal our relationships with one another as well. As much as we might like to blame others for the nationwide fail at agreeing to disagree, we all have to own our behavior. We cannot control others in word or deed, but we always have the option of controlling our reactions. We always have a choice in how we respond. Nothing someone else does or says will ever justify bad behavior on our part.
We need to own what we put out into the world.
The truth is our words are going to outlive us. Thanks to social media, we get and give information so quickly that the rate of words flying out of our mouths has exceeded the filter in our brains. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how right we think we are if our behavior is wrong. We need to open our eyes to the hypocrisy of calling things out in others that we ourselves are currently doing. We have Fundamental Attribution Error to thank for that.
An article out of the University of Texas explains it well. “Because of the fundamental attribution error, we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people. We’re inclined to ignore situational factors that might have played a role.”
“So, the fundamental attribution error explains why we often judge others harshly while letting ourselves off the hook at the same time by rationalizing our own unethical behavior.” (See more on FAE below.)
The culmination of all that we were able to see and do during our time in NYC ended up being right outside our hotel. The “HOPE” sculpture, another work by the same artist, is on display just three blocks away from where “LOVE” had once been. Hope, by definition, is “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.” We need to make sure that what we say we want correlates with what we do.
Feelings come and go, but love is a choice.
Robert Indiana passed away in 2018, but will always be remembered for the legacy of “LOVE” and “HOPE” he left behind. The words he chose to create as art are a testament to what he wanted to put out into the world. What will we be remembered for? What will we leave behind? What are we putting out into the world?
I hope it’s love.
Learn more about the Fundamental Attribution Error in this short video from the University of Texas:
Photo by Daniel ODonnell on Unsplash
You can view Jim Rennert’s amazing work on his website: https://www.jimrennert.com/
hindsight 