What is love and how do we manifest
it in our lives? Why don’t we manifest
it more often? If God is love, as the
Bible says, and I believe this to be true, then why is the world so troubled
and full of hatred and fear and evil?
Better minds than mine have wrestled with these questions – C.S. Lewis,
for example, who says because God is a loving God, He does not force Himself
upon us. He does, however, drop a lot of
hints. I asked what love is and I don’t
know if there is one answer. Again,
citing C.S. Lewis, he breaks it down into four categories in his book The Four Loves. As excellent as his ideas are (and far
superior to mine), they are only manifestations of love. Agape – God’s love, Phileo – brotherly love,
Eros – romantic or sexual love, and Storge – empathic love. (Lewis did not use the term “agape.” Later commentators did.)[1] These are all beautiful and necessary, but
again, only manifestations. They do not
exactly define the word.
Maybe love, like
God, is indefinable. Maybe all we can do
is witness its many manifestations. But
maybe we can also manifest it ourselves.
This too has many possibilities, perhaps an infinite number. We can manifest, demonstrate, show, exhibit,
give, create love by loving ourselves and doing what brings us joy and then
sharing that joy with the world. The
reason I write is for love. The reason I
study history is for love. The reason I
teach is for love. I do these things because I love to do them. They make
me happy.
I like being
happy. I don’t seek happiness directly,
because it can’t be found. It’s always attached to something, some type of
work, some good deed, some form of self-care or care for others, some form of
sacrifice or self-discipline, which means sometimes I do things that I don’t
want to do initially, but then as I do them and as I get better at them, I grow
to love them. This too makes me happy. This too manifests love.
Again, though,
what is love?
I don’t know.
All I know is when
I feel it, I feel peaceful and joyful and I have no conditions on anyone. I
don’t expect others to change. Well, I
do, but not for me, but for them. When
people grow, that too is love.
Love is natural
and spontaneous. Once, when I was 17, I was trying to find some answers in life
and I was going through a period of spiritual uncertainty and confusion. I was talking about it to a friend, Eugene,
and he said, “I’ll be right over.” I was
standing in the kitchen where the phone was (this was when phones were attached
to walls). A 7-year-old neighbor girl
just happened to walk in as I hung up because she was looking for her brother.
I was so happy about Eugene coming over that I spontaneously gave her a hug.
This was not something I normally did.
But that was love, or a manifestation of it…spontaneous and happy.
Sometimes love is
work. It’s commitment and self-discipline and sacrifice. Sometimes the spontanaiety and the happiness
are not there, but the lack of these things doesn’t make love any less valid. I
find that commitment, self-discipline and sacrifice often create a different
and more powerful type of happiness. I
have a lot to learn about this kind of love, but I find the more
self-disciplined I am, the happier and more loving I feel.
To answer my
second question, I believe that the world is so troubled and full of hatred and
fear and evil is that most people lack something that makes them feel
spontaneous and happy and they also lack something worth creating
self-discipline for. Too much of the
first leads to laziness. Too much of the second leads to fanaticism. We need to
Get Started and Keep Going, but if this doesn’t create love then we need to Get
Started and Keep Going in another direction.
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