During the time I was president of Ohio's largest hospital, Riverside Methodist Hospital (left) in Columbus, part of our caregiving mission included looking after prisoners under a contract with the state. When one convict escaped and took hostages, he was quickly demonized by some of the staff.
"He's not all bad," one of the police negotiators advised. "He just wants drugs." This view enabled her to talk the hostage taker into releasing his hostages and surrendering.
The police negotiator lived one of Martin Luther King Jr's most oft-referenced quotes: "There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."
How do we express Love to patients we don't like? How do we live lovingly while working with a supervisor we may think of as "the worst of us?" It can only be by accepting that there is "good in the worst of us" and that, good as we think we may be "there is evil in the best of us."
It is reasonable for us to be discerning about what we think is good. It is inconsistent with Love for us, as caregivers, to pass moral judgment on those for whom we care.
It's tragic that good-evil thinking sometimes emanates from our leaders, as when President George W. Bush said after September 11, 2001 that "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists – there is no in between." What about those who disagreed with some of that President's actions? Were they "with us" or "with the terrorists" simply because they opposed the Iraq War?
It's pretty difficult to love our enemies if we think of them as all bad. For example as evil-acting as terrorists can be, we may suppose their bad actions may be grounded in sincere beliefs, however twisted they seem. We may also appreciate that some of the worst crimes are committed by those suffering from mental illness.
The dehumanizing treatment of black people in the south up until the late 1960s was not only wrong but it resulted in a lower standard of medical care for that portion of our population. In other words, biased thinking can affect the quality of our caregiving.
The same can be true of relationships. Marriages or work interactions that end badly are sometimes painted as entire failures even though the relationship may have included many loving times. Leaders who have accomplished a great deal may be branded as all bad because of something that happened at the end of long and valuable service.
It will always be easy for some people to look at the world in black and white terms. Those who live Love can never do this. For Love understands that we are neither good nor bad but simply children of God.
-Reverend Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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