From Enemy to Friend

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” – Martin Luther King

It sounds impossible. If you have an enemy, how can that person ever become a friend? This isn’t turning the other cheek that we’re familiar with from the Bible, but close. Still, something about it seems rather difficult.

Maybe not.

Consider politics – even if you don’t like certain politicians because of party loyalty, personal convictions or personalities. In the political arena, opponents are considered enemies – until they’re not. Often, as in the case of the aftermath of political primaries, former enemies form alliances, endorse their previous opponent, even are named to positions within the potential administration.

Enemies turn into friends, at least, friends of an arm’s length sort. They probably won’t be erstwhile friends, those you turn to in your most dire need, but friends in contrast to enemies.

What has this to do with love? Just that it takes a bigger person to overlook enmity, to see the individual underneath the swagger and braggadocio, to separate the rhetoric from the underlying facts.

Or goodness, in the case of many.

Think about the bully on the playground, how he or she pesters and torments another kid, usually someone smaller, different, more vulnerable. If the targeted child continues to cower and show fear, the aggressive behavior on the part of the bully is likely to continue. Standing up for him or herself, however, doesn’t always take the form of physical fighting. Sometimes, just a direct look – a nonthreatening, but unafraid look – will turn things in the opposite direction.

This isn’t advocating that anyone act in a foolish manner, putting themselves or others at avoidable risk. It’s just an illustration that enemies can become something other than that, if not a friend, at least a non-enemy.
What about the co-worker you’ve competed with for a task, coveted assignment or promotion? During the contest, you see that individual as you enemy, someone to beat. After you or he wins, however, you have the option of continuing your adversarial stance, adopting a kind of truce, or joining forces to advance.

You might even become friends.

This isn’t love in the romantic sense. It is love in the human sense. We all do better together than when we fight each other needlessly.

To transform an enemy into a friend requires one person to step forward and initiate the change. That’s often propelled by love, the kind of human emotion that forgives all slights, looks past harsh statements and aggressive actions and finds common bond.

It’s also part of what resonates so strongly in Jesus’ statement during the Sermon on the Mount: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Even if you’re not particularly religious, it’s possible to see the wisdom in those words. Turning an enemy into a friend is actually how humanity learned how to survive and become the dominant species.

Think about that the next time someone cuts you off on the freeway. Instead of reacting, just let them go.

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Photo by Krista Mangulsone