Loverly

Sunday's sermon was on self-giving love. Our minister used Jesus the Christ as the sterling example through his crucifixion. Bob also alluded to different kinds of love--eros, philios, storge, and back to agape.

In his brilliant little book, Love, Leo Buscaglia says that there are not different kinds of love, but rather different degrees of love. I tend to agree, and I would add that we choose different ways to display or act out our love.

A Course in Miracles holds that every act is either an act of love or a cry for love. Powerful stuff, this love business. We spend a liftime (or two) to get a handle on it all.

Dr. Buscaglia also admonishes us to not try defining love. To define love is to "delinit" it. I agree here, also, but like the child who must touch the forbidden hot stove, I'll give it a shot.

My understanding of love is that it is an intense and unconditional feeling of good will. Love opens us up. It reaches out, often in immaterial as well as material ways. We may not always be in control of our loving, but it is intentional early on. Real love is endless, so it has to be without conditions. We'd like to get love in return for love. We'd like for our love to make a positive difference in our loved one's life. But, love be free-flowing. It must say, "I want what is best for you whether or not that 'best' includes me."

In my writing, I explore human relationships. I seek to answer questions about the nature of loving. Hopefully, I'm not being too Freudian when I say that I suspect there are elements of the erotic, the selfish, the selfless, the platonic, the reckless, the premeditated, the conscious, and the unconscious in the way love plays out as we make our journeys across the stage or my characters trek across the page.

Another understanding--largely from a lifetime of church attendance--is simply(?) that God is love. So, is the converse not also true? Love is God.