Weekly Words

Loving Ourselves

The other day while engaged in my personal reading I ran across a poem by Derek Walcott entitled “Love after Love.” It reads:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Though Walcott is clearly discussing what it means to rediscover self and self-love after a romantic relationship, the focus of this poem far transcends the romantic realm.

One of the unique facets of Fellowship of Love Church is our explicit attention to the notion of self-love. Whether it is black people suffering from internalized oppression, women struggling with the self depreciation that results from patriarchy, or any person struggling from the crippling effects of low self-esteem, a lack of self-love can become one of the biggest barriers to a strong and sturdy spirituality. When we don’t love ourselves we make bad decisions in relationships and in life as we attempt to compensate our lack of self-love with self destructive behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, involvement in abusive relationships, materialism and workaholism. We also live and become content being satisfied with the status quo. For these reasons, Fellowship of Love Church makes it a point to acknowledge that loving ourselves is a critical step in loving God and loving others.

I want to encourage you today to listen to Derek Walcott’s invitation in his prolific poem. He challenges us to not allow the expectations of others, the necessary chores of life, or our incessant desire to please others to keep us from paying attention to ourselves. He challenges us to become comfortable in our own skin and learn to nurture and nourish ourselves. And yes, he also challenges us to let self-love be the first love that we recover after heartache and heartbreak of any kind.

I personally challenge you to recognize that God created and sustains you because God loves you. When you internalize this, God’s love for you becomes the primary rationale and motivation for you to love yourself. God should not love you alone. So, join God in loving yourself!

Humbly in Christ’s Love,
Pastor B.A. Jackson