Dear friends,
Last week, I introduced the Neighbor-Love Covenant. It’s an imperfect but intentional commitment to practice love with our bodies in everyday life. In this covenantal way, love isn’t abstract or sentimental. It’s practical and comes alive in the way we see, hear, and relate to other people:
“Today I covenant to love my neighbor as myself. Every woman, man, and child is my neighbor across every boundary and identity. I choose to see and treat my neighbors with value, respect, and practical compassion. Today I say Yes. I am an ambassador of neighbor love.” The Neighbor-Love Covenant
If you committed to this practice, you’ve probably noticed something: it’s beautiful, but it’s not easy. All of us have old habits that can limit our capacity to love.
From Habit to Practice
When I replaced my phone years ago, something frustratingly funny happened: it took me some time to remember to swipe up — not down — to unlock its screen. The muscle memory of using my old phone was literally in my hand. As a result, the simple act of opening my new phone took intentionality. It wasn’t automatic.
Maybe you’ve discovered similar “muscle memory” in your practice of neighbor love
I’ve definitely discovered these old habits in myself. Embodying neighbor love isn’t always automatic.
A Love Checkup
We’ve designed the Ambassador’s Body Checkup (ABC) with this in mind. It’s a simple tool to help us enhance our self-awareness and embodiment of neighbor love. I’ll share it below. The Checkup’s goal isn’t to obsess over our weaknesses but to identify opportunities to expand our love. Just like a normal health checkup, this ABC aims to protect and strengthen our shared flourishing.
Would you pause for a moment and review this simple tool? As you do so, take a fresh breath and receive God’s love for you exactly as you are. Then exhale, “God of love, help me become more honest and expand my love.” Feel free to focus on one area that seems especially relevant for you.
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An Invitation to Embody Love
I want to say this again: the purpose of this Checkup isn’t to police ourselves or pile on guilt. It’s to enhance our capacity to love one another with more intentionality and integrity. Befriending our imperfection is part of the process. It’s also an unexpected way that we can connect more empathetically with one another, since we’re all beloved and also all imperfect.
Today powerful currents in culture are asking us to normalize the opposite of neighbor love, what I call “othering.” We hear “others” being referred to as “enemies,” “animals,” and “monsters.” We’re asked to close our eyes and harden our hearts to the hopes and griefs of vulnerable people. We’re urged to push “them” away and inhabit closed circles of identity.
In our time, choosing to expand our love feels like a courageous act of resistance. It echoes back to Paul’s summons to the first followers of Jesus in Rome: “Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
I feel a fresh spring of hope as I think about people interrupting the inertia of culture to ask, “How can I enlarge my embodied practice of love today?” Goodness comes alive here. (If you’d like to download the Ambassador’s Body Checkup, scroll down to the bottom of the Neighbor-Love Movement’s homepage.)
The Neighbor-Love Covenant and its Checkup are tiny expressions of a healing movement of love. This movement has been unfolding across history for thousands of years. My book Reviving the Golden Rule tells some of this inspiring, unfinished story. I hope you’ll check it out and explore how you can continue this movement of love in our time.
With you in choosing love,
Andrew
