Love Your Neighbor Like Yourself

I am finding it more and more rare that my clients will really open up about their HIV or AIDS diagnosis. They tell me just about everything - struggles with family, substance abuse, and mental health; struggles financially - but when it comes to HIV, it goes un-talked about. I found myself completely caught off guard on Thursday when a couple I had never met before came into the pantry and the husband, a little Hispanic man from NYC, all of a sudden started telling me about his life and the 20 years he has been living with this diagnosis. He began to tell me that he a recovering IV drug user, and that when he lived in NYC, he would do just about anything to get high. I was surprised when he said that he was fully aware that he could get HIV by sharing needles, but sometimes the fear of becoming infected was overshadowed by the need to get high. One day when he was feeling desperate to shoot up, his cousin gave him the needle that he'd just used. He rinsed it under water until it did not seem like any blood remained from the previous user, and he used that same needle to get high.

Not long after that, he found out that his cousin was HIV+, so he went to get tested. Turns out that his cousin had known all along that he had HIV, but did not bother to tell my client. I was dumbfounded, so confused about how someone could put someone they love in clear danger. How can anyone knowingly infect someone else with a virus that will not only affect them for the rest of their lives, but has the potential to kill them?  I've been thinking a lot about what love means and why I feel so called to love each person I encounter regardless of who they are, where they've been, or what they've done.

I've always remembered the passage in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus says the two most important commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbor like yourself. Jesus calls us to love each other, to respect each other's dignity, to embrace difference, to treat others like we ourselves would like to be treated. In reflecting on this passage of scripture the other night with my wonderful community, I started to wonder if these verses are what have informed my compassion throughout my life. I quickly realized that there was no way that it was scripture that sparked compassion inside of me, but that it is scripture and liberation theology in particular that continue to inform my love for the human race. My experiences growing up in East Hartford are what sparked my understanding of suffering, injustice, and pain. Hearing the stories of friends I had growing up and their struggles growing up in poverty, surrounded by violence and drugs - that's when I first experienced compassion.

It is because of those initial experiences with friends growing up that I become frustrated when people express such hatred for others or when people are judged by others because they are marginalized in some way. What good does it do the world if we all frown down upon those suffering from injustice? What kind of world do we create when we judge others based on appearance, sexual orientation, criminal record, or HIV status? Take that one step further: what are we saying to those who are infected or affected by HIV when we don't use condoms or clean needles and put ourselves at risk?

After writing my senior thesis, "HIV and the Sexual Practices of Fordham Students," I noticed that even though many students I spoke with were very educated about HIV and risk factors for becoming infected, that did not make them more likely to protect themselves. They talked more about fear of unwanted pregnancy than of becoming infected with STDs, especially HIV. It seemed as though HIV/AIDS was a taboo topic to discuss. I have been working with a 22-year old client a lot in the past few weeks. He is 12 days older than me and became infected with HIV because he got caught up in the moment and did not use protection. I think so much about my friends in college and the conversations I would have with them about sex. There was this general feeling of invincibility, like HIV could not happen to them, even though they were sleeping around.

For the past three years, after the amazing experience I had in Nashville in 2008 working with Nashville CARES, I promised myself that I would do everything I could to educate others about HIV/AIDS and how to protect themselves and their partners from infection. Since the day that Greg told us that he was HIV+, I promised that I would fight to see this epidemic be brought to an end - not for my safety or for that of my friends; but for the sake of each and every individual I have met in my life who is living with HIV or has been affected by it. My kids at Incarnation Children's Center, the men and women in Nashville, my clients here in Raleigh, the awesome guys I worked with at CARC in Hartford. We must love our neighbor like we love ourselves. Do you want to become infected with HIV? I'm guessing the answer is no. So why do we constantly put ourselves and others at risk? What role does love for humanity play in this? If we just stopped and focused on the common good rather than on selfishness, greed, and power - we could experience a love so close to what God's love for us must be like. We could create a better world based on peace and justice.

The world would be better off
if people tried to become better,
and people would be better
if they stopped trying to become better off.
For when everyone tries to become better off,
nobody is better off.
But when everyone tries to become better
everyone is better off.
Everyone would be rich
if nobody tried to become richer,
and nobody would be poor
if everyone tried to be the poorest.
And everybody would be what he ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what he wants the other fellow to be.

-Peter Maurin's "The Case for Utopia"-