This week’s Reflections was written by the Rev. Jen Osterloh of First United Methodist Church in Brookings.

Last week I was talking with a colleague when they made a comment about how everything we ever needed to learn, we probably learned in kindergarten.

Clearly, that’s an exaggeration, but there’s also some truth in it, isn’t there? Some of these lessons we learned and worked hard on sure would make the world a better place if we leaned into them as adults.

Things like the importance of sharing, playing fair, cleaning up after ourselves, or saying “I’m sorry” when we hurt someone. Things that, really, are all acts of love in their own ways.

Too often, our world reflects more pain, division, and harm … than love. Sometimes, that’s overwhelming, isn’t it? Surely I’m not the only one who has ever wondered: how I can help in some of the big world problems we’re witness to? Would what I can offer even make a difference?

Yet we are called not to be idle, but to lean into love. Jesus, our greatest example of love the world has ever known, chose love through action, care, and by showing up.

He then commands us to do the same, as in John 13:34 when he said:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Love one another, Jesus says. Don’t just love the people it’s easy to love, or the people we like. But love, as Jesus loved: all people, without limit or category or label or definition.

Love one another.

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa put it well when he once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Where have we seen proverbial mice with elephants stepping on their tails? How are we responding? For to do nothing is not just to be neutral, but is also a choice to not act… in love.

So what does loving action look like for you? How can you better love the world around you today?

Our world needs love more now than ever before. We need people to come together to lift each other up, and to remind one another that none of us have to struggle alone. For love is meant to bring us together, and teaches that we are all equal. No matter where we come from, what we look like, who we love, or what economic bracket we are in: we are all meant to love (and care for) one another.

How are you going to better love our community today, and every day moving forward?