The title of this blog will likely catch the attention of many people. Our first thought is about romantic love, and who would not want to be a better lover! While romantic or passionate love is probably the most talked about (perhaps not publicly) it is not the only type of love. A close look at love will reveal that are several categories of love. There are different levels of love. Long ago the Greeks defined the various types or levels of love. They essentially became the benchmark or standard for describing love. Their types of love were: Agape, Eros, Philia, Storage, Philautia and Xenia, The first three are the best known, Storage which is sometimes called Affection is often included. Philautia is the Greek word for self-love and Xenia is Greek for the concept of friendly hospitality, generally referring as to how persons who are far from their home should be treated.
Let us examine the first four:
Agape is love toward our fellow man. It is the type of love required from the Biblical Command, Love God and Love your neighbor. Thomas Aquinas referred to it as “to will the good of another.”
Eros is intimate love. It is passionate and erotic love. This is normally associated with romantic love. Youthful beauty often leads humans to feel erotic desire.
Philia means affectionate regard, friendship, usually between equals. It is a dispassionate virtuous love, It is often called brotherly love, hence Philadelphia is known as the city of brotherly love (of course, unless you are playing against their NFL team).
Storage is sometimes known as affection and most often a descriptor of relationships in the family. In particular it is the love felt by parents and their children.
These descriptions are generally acceptable and it is clear that one type of love can morph into a different type of love. For example affection can become intimate love; the same is true for friendship which can become intimate love. Some say the best mate for marriage is one that was first a friend before becoming a lover. That makes sense to most of us but I am not aware of any data to indicate that beginning will also result in a lasting marriage.
Others have used similar but different categories of love. Some adding categories, some with only three. One of the first theories of love was developed by Sigmund Freud. As Freud so frequently attributed human nature to unconscious desires, his theory of love centered around the need for an “ego ideal”. His definition of an ego ideal is this: the image of the person that one wants to become, which is patterned after those whom one holds with great respect
However in 1960 a noted author and lay theologian, C.S. Lewis, wrote the book, The Four Loves. It is highly regarded and we will benefit us to take a closer look at that book.
Lewis’s Four Loves were Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity. He uses affection for the Greek category of Storge and uses Charity for the Greek category of Agape. It is not clear why he modified the categories but Charity seems to fit Aquinas’s definition of agape as “to will the good of another.”
Lewis introduces some subsets of love which he calls Need-love and Gift-love. Need-love is the love a baby needs from its mother. Gift-love is a much higher level, it is like Grace and is God-given. It is a subset of agape love.
Agape love is unselfish love, it is the love of others. All the other loves are stepping stones to Agape love which is as close to understanding God’s love as we as humans can come. It is a model for unconditional love, how we continue to love, the unloveable, even when they do not return our love. Lewis defines love as the Divine Energy. In my view, it perhaps his most important statement in The Four Loves. It emphasizes the unlimited power of love and its prominent position of love over all other forms of energy. I believe that agape love was the purpose for which God created the universe. I also believe it is very likely that it was the Divine Energy that provided the energy for the Big Bang!
This Divine Energy is primal love it is Gift-love. Divine Gift-love in man enables him to love what is not naturally lovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior, and the sneering. Gift-love is what is required to answer the commandment, Love God and Love your neighbor.
Who is our neighbor? Everyone! Yes, everyone, this is giving in Mathew Chapter 25 in the last judgment when the rules for admission into either heaven or hell are established. The King is passing judgement to those who will be sentenced to hell and they try to plead their case:
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
What this is telling us is that agape love is way to a more fulfilled and good life here on earth but more importantly it is the way to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven! That should be everyone’s goal. You may wish to ponder this conclusion before proceeding in our discussion of love! It is important.
It is also important to understand that love cannot exist with a single person (other than self-love). Love is what unites us. Love reminds us that we are all interconnected, all brothers and sisters. Love offered, to be fulfilled requires two persons, love that is not responded to has no energy. Love requires free will, the ability of the individual to accept what is freely offered. The Divine energy of love increases when love offered is accepted and reflected back to the originator. Love offered and accepted increases the power of love just as when electromagnetic energy which is reflected back and forth in transmission systems and continues to increase in energy until resonance is achieved. This resonance represents enormous power and is unlimited. It occurs when one love says I love you and the other says I love you more, with each iteration the energy (power) of love increases. There is no power on earth greater than love.
Lewis also asks an important question when he asks what kind of love will we experience in heaven? He hints that it is like agape love but at a not yet experienced higher divine level. He also leaves the question open for us to ponder since during his time of writing no one had died and gone to heaven and returned so how would we ever know? Fortunately lots of things have happened since 1960 which may help answer that question. In recent years dozens of books on the experiences of persons who experienced near death experiences (NDEs) have been published. These experiences include visiting heaven before they are told it is not their time and they must return to their bodies. The accuracy of what they experienced in heaven is amazing, including an intense feeling of love, perhaps for the first time feeling the higher level of agape love! To check this out for yourself I recommend the book, Imagine Heaven.
In the book, “Imagine Heaven” the author quotes a study of 1,300 NDE cases and developed statistics on how often the core parts of the NDE experience were noted. In addition to experiencing overwhelming love, intense light, out-of-body episodes, and new dimensions they experienced the following:
- Out of body experience 75.4%
- Heightened senses 74.4%
- Intense and generally positive emotions (peace and love) 76,2%
- Passing into or through a tunnel 33/8%
- Encountering a mystical or brilliant light 64.6%
- Encountering other beings or deceased relatives of friends 57.3%
- A sense of alteration of time or space 60.5%
- Life review 22.2%
- Encountering unworldly (heavenly) realms 52.2%
- Encountering or learning special knowledge 56%
11.Encountering a boundary of barrier 31%
12.A return to the body 58.5% were aware of the decision to return.
The good news is that Heaven is wonderful, this should lessen our fear of dying as well as supporting the concept that love in Heaven is probably a higher level of agape.
Understanding love can also help us to understand a statement we have often heard, God created us in his image. Most of us think this means as in a physical image. This concept is fortified by the belief that God (Jesus) became man in order to convey to us that God was a loving Father and not just a taskmaster. More importantly Jesus came to show us the way to salvation. However I believe that when God created us in his image it was in his spiritual image, not a physical image. He created in us free will, which enabled us to offer and accept love. He keeps reminding us in Scripture and other ways to exercise our free will by following His command, Love God and Love your neighbor. That is who we are.
In this discussion of love we have pointed to the importance of agape love which is Divine Energy. We have implied that Divine Energy will always win against hatred and other evils.
But how do we do that? First reflect on the power of the individual. When God created us he not only gifted us with his spirit but he created a totally unique person. No one has your fingerprint or DNA (with the possible exception of identical twins), you are special. In addition we were born in the United States, a country that was founded on individual rights. So you can do this, but you need a process.
I have been surprised that in all the discussions and theories of love, no one has mentioned the concept of respect (at least it is hard to find). If we want to demonstrate to someone that we love them we first have to respect them. Respect is the first step in developing a loving relationship. We cannot simply say we respect you, respect has to be earned. This means this relationship building must be done on a person to person basis. This will be particularly hard today with social media, telephone texts, and the lockdowns in which person to person conversations almost seem unnatural. So you may have to wait until after the country reopens so you can meet for coffee somewhere for these person to person meetings.
Earning respect is not easy because it means you have to become a honest listener. You need to do this with non-threatening questions to find out what are the things that are really important to him. Even the cousin that thinks you are dumb and needs to keep putting you down or the friend that constantly corrects you probably have some things in common with you. It might be you both have children (or better still, grandchildren) or you both like fishing or gardening. Begin with questions like how are the grandkids? Then follow up questions like do you see them much? If the person you are communicating with says something like you seem different (perhaps they are getting suspicious) let them know that you are aware that you both like fishing (or whatever) and you enjoy talking with him about that and are tired of always dealing with controversial subjects so you want to take a break from that for a while. Hopefully a few meetings about mutually liked subjects will cause him to begin to see you care. Respect shows you care and leads to trust which can lead to friendship or if a family member, love.
This takes a lot of work and time and love and we haven’t even gotten to the controversial subjects on which we both hold strong, emotional, and opposite positions. But we must get to friendship and love through respect before we can heal a divided community. Bishop Curry said in his book, Love is the Way, that love is the only thing left to save a divided community. Clearly we need a way to heal our very divided community.
Bishop Curry’s solution actually comes for St. Paul. As a Bishop he presided at many weddings and the Scripture reading most couples choose for the ceremony was 1 Corinthians 13, and as soon as we hear the first words we remember it. It begins with:
“If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong… it goes on until it begins to define love; “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things. Love never ends.”
It was important that Paul defined what Love is and what it is not. Some of the “is nots” listed were the very things the citizens of Corinth were doing. He founded Corinth on love but the community had drifted. They were dividing into factions depending on who had baptized them, the wealthy expected to be first in line for everything, they were fighting in the pews of the church. Paul was furious with them and said the only thing to save them and heal the community was love. They needed to get back to loving their neighbor.
Well we are now ready to address the really tough questions that are the basis of the deep divide in the community. And since we are not Paul we have to follow the process we are developing here. Remember we have already reached the point of mutual respect so we can move on directly to the tough questions. We need to use the same technique, ask questions in such a way so as to avoid inciting emotions. Remember also that both parties are now good listeners. This is already a step toward healing. This has the potential of each party not giving up their primary position but now understands the points made by the other party and is more willing to modify his position to address some of the concerns of the other party. This is compromise, which for a long time has not been considered a good result. Compromise is a major part of healing.
The challenge is to pick a friend or family member who strongly differs in your opinion and use love and the process outlined here to move him from respect to friendship and/or love to a healing of your relationship. You will then become part of the healing process of our nation. We need lots of people doing that. Let’s begin the process of realizing that our neighbors are not as unloveable as we thought (it might help to recall the criteria for getting into Heaven).
Remember this process requires face to face meetings and since the coronavirus has keep many people in lockdown you may have to wait until the coffee shops and cafes reopen. That wait time would be a good time to read Bishop Curry’s book, Love is the Way. It is a practical guide to centering on love and to the healing of families, communities, and countries.
Love is the answer. Love is Divine Energy.
Will Lannes