Today, my guest is Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. He is here to talk with us about the power of love to heal our broken hearts, our broken relationships, and our broken world. You may remember in 2018, an American preacher took the pulpit to preach at the Royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. For we Episcopalians, it was a moment of pride to watch our 27th Presiding Bishop give an amazing sermon, reminding all of us of the power of love to make this old world a new world.
Throughout his ministry, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has reminded us that if it’s not about love, it’s not about God. He’s the author of many books, one of which is Love is the way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling times. Today, he will talk to us about the power of love.
- What is your definition and understanding of the power of love?
- What advice do you have for us in considering others?
- How have you experienced the power of love to heal relationships and people in your life?
- Can you share how you have seen love heal communities?
- What message of hope do you have for those who are struggling with broken hearts?
What Is Your Definition And Understanding Of The Power Of Love?
01:28
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
I don’t have an abstract notion of the power of love, as it is very concrete and pretty practical. Love is simply a genuine and active concern for others as much as I have a healthy concern for myself. Then putting that into practice according to the prayer book, “I don’t live for myself alone, but for you.” It’s similar to something in the Southern African tradition that Desmond Tutu popularized as Ubuntu: I am because we are.
You see the power of that kind of love when you consider the opposite, which is self-centered existence that is self-destructive for the self and for everybody else in the long run. Government, marriages, churches, communities, and a global civilization do not and cannot work that way. When everybody’s out for number one, nobody wins. That’s basically subtraction and leaves nobody. In the TV show, Survivor, the basic concept was that the person who gets everybody else kicked off the island and finally survives wins. Well, that’s mere survival, not living.
There’s a profound difference between real life and that. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” That’s not about a prosperity gospel; that’s about having life as God intended for the creatures he gave life in the first place. That kind of life cannot be found by unbridled unenlightened self-centeredness. It can’t and won’t work. It has never worked, and it never will.
But the kind of life that lives for the good and the wellbeing of others and the self is the kind of life that can have meaning and make a difference. That kind of life can save families, communities, societies, nations, and a global community. That is the most important thing we’ve got going for us.
Jennifer
I love that because there are so many examples in our world where we can see that love is not present and how destructive that can be. I work with families going through the divorce process in my little world, and we certainly see that play itself out. It is very true that when we only focus on our individual needs and interests, it can become self-destructive.
What struck me when you were talking about this is the need for community. I can’t just go and live in isolation because then, there’s nobody to love. So as we live in this world, we have to figure out ways to consider other people at least as much as we consider ourselves. But that can be so hard, especially when people see things so differently.
What Advice Do You Have For Us In Considering Others?
05:25
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
I’m aware of the complexity of love, but if we think of the power of love as a spiritual practice and not so much as an emotional state, then we have the possibility of beginning to think of “How can I practice love practically?” It becomes doable when you get it on that level, even if it’s difficult, as opposed to when it remains on the emotional level. The reality is that emotions come and go, just like feelings. You don’t have control over feelings, but you have control over what you do about them.
Love is a decision and a commitment; love is not necessarily the same as liking. Liking is a feeling, a reaction, and it is emotional, while love is a response that actually seeks the good and the welfare of the other as well as itself. Well, when you do that, then it becomes a practice. So, when I find it difficult to love somebody or to engage in the kind of love that is true justice and not just revenge —in a social and political context— that becomes part of my prayer life, where I ask God to help me to do it.
But sometimes, in my practical life, I say, “You are going to have to help me because I’m having a hard time loving you in this situation,” or “I’m having a hard time figuring out how I can get along with you, and I’m not putting that on you. I own that for myself, so help me and give me some advice.” My point is that it’s a very practical reality.
I was interviewed a while back by a business magazine, and the interviewer said, “Everything you’ve said sounds true, but how does it fly in the corporate world?” And I said, “Well, translate the language slightly differently.” Every decision you make, if you ask, ‘How does this impact me?’ Well, that’s pretty self-centered. But how does this impact the greater ‘we’ —other people? When you’re making a decision, is this about me or ‘we’? Is this about narrow self-interest, or is this about the greater good?
That’s a practice, not a feeling. That’s an ethical practice for how I can make decisions along the way and figure out practically what I need to do when I find it hard to love someone. And when you put it in that way, it becomes something that we can do, not just feel and react.
Jennifer
I love it. You need to give yourself time to focus on, “How do I consider we and not just me?” Concerning what you just said about prayer life, I will say the one prayer that I have experienced being answered most consistently is when I ask God to help me find some love for my fellow human at that moment when I don’t.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Don’t hold me to this, but I have a funny theological understanding of the garden of Eden issues. The garden of Eden was paradise, and the conflict had nothing to do with gender. The conflict had to do with numbers. Everything was fine as long as there was just one human being, God, and the animals. But as soon as there were two, you got community. And in community, that’s where the issue gets engaged. Is it all about me, or is it about we?
Jennifer
At times, maybe in our immaturity, we feel everybody needs to see and experience the world way we do and agree with ‘me, my beliefs, and my feelings.’ And we’ve stopped learning how to really appreciate the diversity and the different and totally contrary viewpoints. Instead of going with the ‘either’/ ‘or,’ we look for the ‘and,’ then we can all be together and hold these very disparate beliefs. There’s something really holy and special about that.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Yes, it’s true. I’m 69 years old, older than some, but not as old as others. I’m very aware that over the years, when I’ve had to make decisions as a parish priest, a Bishop, or even as a Presiding Bishop, they’ve generally been better made when it’s in the form of community, where I’ve gotten advice, listened to other thoughts, and put it all together, almost like a jigsaw puzzle.
Different voices help to get closer to the truth, and it’s better than just my voice, no matter how exalted I think I may be or how brilliant I may think I am. I think there’s a reason that there are four gospels in the New Testament, not just one. The reality is Jesus, the Christ is so awesome and incredible. Why would we think one writer could get it?
Jennifer
I love that. I’ve never thought about that, but it’s true. You have four different perspectives and how enriching that is in our Christian experience.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
And we don’t just have Paul; we have Peter, James, and other writers in the epistle. So we’ve got different voices. You’ve got First and Second Kings telling the story of the Kings. You’ve got First and Second Chronicles, which give you a different perspective of similar stories. The Spirit is telling us something.
Jennifer
Your book accompanied me through my big life transition when my mother died last year from cancer. I had your book with me to read while I was in hospice with her, and it was a lovely accompaniment and a wonderful reminder of this journey we’re on.
Have You Experienced How The Power Of Love Healed Relationships And People In Your Life?
13:06
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Part of the first and maybe my defining experience of the power of love in many respects, was with my mother’s death when I was a kid. It unfolded over a while. She had a cerebral hemorrhage and was in the hospital for several months, and then she was moved to a care facility near us. In those days, kids weren’t allowed on the hospital floor unless they were the patient. Thus, my sister and I didn’t see her for months.
It was the first part of the school year in the fall when we hadn’t seen her, and then there was another year where she was basically in a coma and then died after that. So there was a long period of grieving, almost like prolonged hospice care. Although it was conceivable, though remote, that she could wake up and come back in some way —every once in a while that happens— but nobody held that out as a realistic possibility. We just said our prayers and left it there.
But walking through that journey was kind of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Not quite death yet, but the shadow, which is tough and maybe tougher than the actual reality. That’s what you were doing, walking with your mother.
Jennifer
Yes, it’s a place where there’s a lot of fear and some anxiety about not knowing. Usually, when people go into the hospital, they go to get better, and you’re helping nurse them back to health, but it was the one time I realized that it wasn’t going to get better.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
No. And, however long it was, it was a long goodbye. My father’s dead now, so I can’t talk with him to find out how he walked through that internally and spiritually. I know he manifested that for us, his kids, as a father, a parent, doing what a parent would do with their kids. But I know that for us, the sting of death when she died was cushioned by people who loved us, cared for us, expected things out of us, and didn’t let us off the hook. We still had to do our homework. “Your mama’s sick, yes. Now do your homework.” There were no excuses.
What that does is that it almost affirms your dignity and your capacity to continue. Nobody says that, but that’s what it does. It cushions you and makes you stand up at the same time. I realized when I was writing the book, retelling that story, that that’s what love looks like. It’s not mushy or sentimental, and it is strong stuff. The Song of Solomon says, “Love is stronger than death” and “Many waters cannot quench love,” and it’s true. And it can help the process of eventual healing over time.
But the scars are still there, like Jesus after the crucifixion and the resurrection. He still had the scars on his hands and his side. I remember when I was a kid, through my early teen years, I could actually hear my mother’s voice in my mind. I don’t remember what she was saying specifically, but I could hear her voice. I think I can still hear it every once in a while, but it’s very distant, like an echo, far away. So, it’s never completely gone. And there have been other tragedies and the same kind of thing —deaths, sickness, and hardship; it’s the midst of life.
Jennifer
And I’ve noticed with my own mom’s passing that her love is something that I still feel so strongly within me. Like I have it, and I didn’t lose her sense of love. That love is so powerful, and it does live on.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
It’s real, and it’s a spiritual reality.
Jennifer
I also love what you just said about love and no excuses. It doesn’t let us just slip away. It recognizes our dignity and plants and nurtures the seeds of hope for what is yet to come.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
You are so right. It really does. It’s not an accident that in the New Testament, in First Corinthians, at the end of chapter 13, Paul says, “Now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.” He puts faith, hope, and love together. That’s the triangle or trinity of life that makes life livable, no matter what life throws at you.
Jennifer
It really does. And I think that’s such an important message for people to grasp, especially when we’re amidst despair. I think people feel really fed up with so much in this world. But whatever their perspectives are, there’s so much more here to bind us together and to give us hope for our future.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
It’s really true. We’ve got some real problems in this country and in the global community. I’ll fly off with other bishops to the Lambeth Conference in England in a few days, and they’re having wildfires in Europe. I’ve been to England a lot, but I’ve never been to England when it was a hundred degrees. I expect that here in North Carolina, but I don’t expect that in Canterbury, England, much less France or Germany. I expect that when I’m in Sub-Saharan Africa, not in Northern Europe. We got some problems, and we haven’t fixed them yet.
Jennifer
It seems like getting out of the self-interest and looking for the ‘we’ is where we maybe can find some of the answers when we’re very intentional and develop a practice around that. I love your book, and you give many great examples in there of how you’ve seen love heal communities in your own experience.
Have You Experienced The Power of Love Healing Communities?
22:12
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
There are a number of such experiences, but I remember one in particular, and I think I talked about it near the end of the book. I was then serving in North Carolina as the Bishop. For some years before I got there, a number of the Episcopal diocese had been sponsoring a retreat for people who were HIV positive or had HIV/AIDS or for their caregivers. And it was kind of a rest or a break for those folks.
It was a full weekend at a conference center. It was a weekend of meditations and prayer times, and people got to rest. There was also relaxation and recreation. Then on Saturday night, there was a healing service. I had never been with almost 200 people who were living with profound suffering and hardship. This took place in the early 2000s.
And I saw over that weekend that it was like experiencing what the Bible means when it talks about the Sabbath, God’s eternal Sabbath rest. For that weekend, the power of a community that prayed hard for about two and a half hours during the healing service made me realize what St. Paul was talking about in Romans when he said, “I reckon that the sufferings of this pleasant time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.”
For a moment, It was an experience of my grandma’s words, “Resting in the arms of Jesus.” Every once in a while, the virus would act up, and somebody would get sick and might need to be attended to by the medical team on site, but there was more power in the community to embrace and hold that. In some sense, there was some intimation of healing in the midst of that. As you said earlier, it was the catalyst for hope. And if you’ve got hope, you can march through hell for a heavenly cause if you have to.
Jennifer
I love that. What a great gift these moments are when God reveals Himself in community, and we can really hold on to those as we go through some other times in life when it doesn’t always feel so hopeful.
Do You Have A Message Of Hope For Those Who Are Struggling With Broken Hearts?
26:19
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Don’t quit; keep going. But stop and pause and think. Well, let me say it this way. Going back in time, Mahalia Jackson, the old gospel singer from the 40s, 50s, and 60s sang the song ‘How I got over. ‘ It was a song about realizing that she had been through hard times in her life. And at that time, she didn’t know how she got over it, but when she looked back and wondered, it was like she was never alone.
Sometimes it’s helpful to think, how have I gotten through hard times before? What did I do? What did I learn? Or, if not me, “How did someone I know get through hard or painful times?” What were the resources that they called on? Be practical because there’s something you can do. “I will not give up; there’s something I can do.” What is it to help me get over? Also, when it hurts, find help.
Jennifer
Oh, yes. And in your book, you said problems are solutions in disguise.
Bishop Michael Curry
It was so long ago when I heard somebody say that and I don’t remember who said it or what the occasion was, but I’ve never forgotten it. Problems are solutions in disguise, it’s true. If you look for a perfect solution, you’ll look in vain. There are no perfect solutions to anything, but every problem is a riddle. You figure out the way to undo that riddle.
And it may be something small that doesn’t completely take it away but helps you to get a grip on it for this moment. And sometimes that’s enough for this moment. Like that old song used to say, “One day at a time, sweet Jesus, one day at a time.” There’s wisdom in that one day, one moment at a time because the mountain is too hard to climb by taking on the whole mountain. You got to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, sweet Jesus.
Jennifer
Amen. These are such great words to live by. Thank you for taking some time to talk to us about the healing power of love.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
It’s a joy to be with you. Thank you for what you’re doing and for having me, and God bless you.
Jennifer
Thank you. To learn more about Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, visit his bio here, or click here to learn more about the Episcopal Church.
You may also like to read: The Spiritual Journey of Life with Reverend Dr. Andy Stoker
