Reflections on Love at the Drug Store
The Virtue of Disinterested Love
Wedged in the CVS aisle between two rows of pink and red paper, I engage in a familiar February ritual of opening and closing countless cards to find the right one. Everything I do, I can only imagine doing with you. Dishonest. I think about you all day long—and all night, too. Hyperbole. The reality of our life together is better than how I could have ever imagined. Unreal. I love you with all my heart, body, mind, and soul—because you complete every one of them. Idolatrous—and self-centered. For my husband-a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh…but a good loud snore means we’re happily married. Old and cynical. This has all happened in such a blurry beautiful haze, and now I can’t imagine my life without you. I’m not a teenager. I turn to the humor section, but the “f” word pops up. I grab one celebrating lasting love that starts, Our love is eternal, but inside it says, even in the depths of hell. Is it time for the cute animal section of ten puppies in a red basket and a dozen kittens in a pink basket? Eye-rolling, I turn to the blank cards. Why are they so expensive when no one from a cubicle in Kansas City, Missouri is needed to write them? Maybe I’ll give him a book instead.
A book that plays expertly with theme of love is To Kill a Mockingbird. Most of us are familiar with Atticus, the heroic father and lawyer who defends Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping Mayella, a young white woman from the slovenly Ewell clan. Atticus tries to teach his daughter, Scout, empathy saying, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view––until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (33) and that “it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about you were interested in” (174). Applying these lessons, Scout defuses an explosive situation outside the jail by showing interest in one of the men in the posse set on murdering Robinson. The empathy of a child averts a murder.
Empathy is not always received well. At Robinson’s trial Atticus kindly invites Mayella to tell the truth but she does “not hear the compassion in his invitation” (213), and she spews her vitriol and hatred for all to see. Though she is presented as victim, a kind of mockingbird injured by hatred, poverty, and a lack of kindness, she becomes a victimizer to cover the shame of making advances to Robinson. Atticus’s cross examination not only exposes her hatred but also the violence of her father, Mr. Robert E. Lee Ewell.
After the trial Bob Ewell stops Atticus on the post office corner and spits in his face telling him that “he’d get him if it took the rest of his life” (247). What is Atticus’s response? “I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco.” When Atticus’s son, Jem, asks about his father’s reaction, Atticus tells Jem to stand in Ewell’s shoes for a moment and consider this: “I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there” (248).
Empathy and love are not influenced by considerations of personal advantage and are free from selfish motive or interest. Love wills the good in others without needing to receive anything in return. In his book Works of Love Soren Kierkegaard calls this disinterested love, an impartial and equitable position toward others that shuns superiority. Because love is not based on requital, it is free and pure. How does this love start? “The work of recommending love must be done inwardly in self-denial” Kierkegaard advances. “Love is found in self-denial because that’s where one finds God’s love. What we learn from ourselves is superficial; we must learn from God. It must be done outwardly in disinterest.” Thus, “[i]f we wish to assure ourselves that love is entirely disinterested, we must remove every possibility of requital.” This is far removed from I love you with all my heart, body, mind, and soul—because you complete every one of them.
But doesn’t romantic love have to be a mutual and requited kind of love, you might argue? Yes, it does, and that’s the mystery and beauty of two people finding one another to share a life together. But if that’s primarily what romantic love is, then what happens if love gets off balance and unequal, or if there is a waxing and waning? What happens in those times when a partner becomes the “other,” when we don’t understand him or her, when we wonder if that person is the person we married? What happens when that person doesn’t complete us in every way? Something more is needed.
Accepting and embracing the other’s differences are what is needed, not just in romantic but in other relationships. Kierkegaard speaks to us today in our fractious world of silos and rancor. Disinterested love won’t sell Hallmark cards, but it will change the way we deal with those who are different from us and those who are not easy to love.
I found something for Valentine’s Day for Rick. Shall I give him the heart candy “I’D STAB BOB EWELL FOR YOU” or the card “I love you even when you snore”?
Source cited:
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 2002.