Love is not Inclusive

Love creates boundaries. It sets up exclusionary relationships. Diversity and inclusion are hounded as the empathetic thing to focus on, but they end up compromising the organism’s immune system.

Love demands that you put your child first. You place them before children you might meet on the street or even the other neighborhood kids.

Your own children have a claim on you that does not extend to other children. If it was inclusive, it would mean they were not really your children.

The same with your wife. You put her needs above some random woman you might meet at the grocery store.

Love is not inclusive. It sets up obligations and boundaries. If it didn’t, it would not be love. Those you love have a claim on your time. They have a claim on your attention. They have a claim on strength and treasure.

If you show preference toward random strangers, you are not displaying love. You are hating those you are supposed to love.

However, this boundary does not surround the totality of your obligations. You are still kind to strangers. You still show hospitality. You owe something to your place of work.

But it is the exclusionary boundary of your family that provides the other obligations their context. It provides a base of operations, a fortress, from which to do all of these other things. Guests are still allowed inside the fortress from time to time, but they are guests.

If they ever make their home within the boundary, that entails a drastic change in status and relationship. An adoption. A marriage.

The boundary created by love is a powerful immune system to protect the integrity of those inside its walls.

Guard it well.