The Challenge of Loving Others ~ Aaliyah Golden-Whitehead

You know what’s challenging? Loving others. It’s really hard. Why? Well for me, loving others means caring for them—offering aid, whether that be food, water, weather-appropriate clothes, a resting place, medicine, somewhere to freshen up, or money. Offering aid is caring.

During our time in Douglas, a pastor recounted a time where there were people on the side of the road that needed aid. But, there was a hesitation. His family was in the car with him, and because of the legal status of his family member, in the U.S., it made it complicated to aid these people on the side of the road. These people who desperately needed aid were migrants.

Did you know that helping an undocumented immigrant can have serious legal consequences? Aid of an undocumented immigrant violates 8 U.S. Code § 1324. Violating this law can result in heavy fines, jail time with a minimum of five years, or both. So, now I’m hesitating too. If the pastor helps this group of migrants, what happens to him? What happens to his family?

I don’t have any answers, which leads me to ask, What would Jesus do? Mark 3:1-6 tells us what Jesus would do. He asks,

“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

Silence followed. But Jesus, like he often does, answered his own question; not with words, but with actions.  When faced with consequences—death, in Jesus’s case—Jesus provides aid to the man with the withered hand. Offering aid is caring, and caring is love.

Why else is loving challenging? Oh, yeah—compassion. The Oxford dictionary definition of compassion is “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.” On this trip, my compassion took the form of grief. John 11:35 states Jesus wept. I was reminded how to have compassion for people I have not, and will never, meet. Through mourning for migrants who have lost their lives in the desert—being intimately exposed to people who had dreams, hopes, ambition, family, friends—I was reminded how to grieve for people who will never encounter these things again. I will never know their journey, their history, their hardship, their sufferings, or their misfortunes. But what a blessing that I can mourn for them. I can grieve for them—for their journey never completed, their dreams never fulfilled, for the families or friends never met again, for the stories and histories never told, and for their death. This is my compassion. This is love.

Love is challenging because to love is to be vulnerable. On this trip, I saw so much strength in vulnerability, which may sound counterintuitive, but it’s true. Strength in vulnerability looked like a leader from Frontera de Cristo insisting on being present, physically and mentally, despite her body not being on her side, in sickness. She found it so important to be there for the delegations to enhance our experience despite her health. She loved us. A volunteer recalling how she stood up to a threatening person who was trying to take migrants away from the safe place the shelter provided, and into harm’s way. This threatening person did it because of direct orders from their boss. However, despite her fear she stood proudly and confidently between the threat and the migrants. She loved them. A man who openly showed compassion in any way he could, crying for hardships shared, grieving for the dead, struggling to find the right words to express his compassion and despite the struggle, trying. He loves us and he loves them. Vulnerability means putting our ego aside and cracking our ‘fully composed’ masks, and braving to be emotionally exposed. Vulnerability is love.

I’m recommitting to challenging myself to love. What will you do, how will you love?

Aaliyah Golden-Whitehead (she/her) is a junior studying botany.

Photo: Aaliyah and other members of the BWAP team participating in the Tuesday evening vigil.