eros-- romantic (often sexual) love.
filio -- friendship (brotherly) love
storge -- affection (as for a child)
mania -- compulsive, fixated overly enthusiastic (ie, pyromania, cleptomania)
agape -- unconditional
Clearly there are many ways to express each kind of love. In our discussion, though, we agreed that agape is the only kind of love that is lavished upon the "other" with no conditions or expectations. Each of the others (except mania, of course) can grow into the unconditional and abiding love that is agape. But eros, filio and storge all start out with the lover developing some sort of hope or expectation of the other.
I offer now what I wrote some time ago about what it means to say "I Love You"... in a way that shows the transformational power of love upon both the lover and the beloved.
Three Words
I
One single letter that contains all of me. One single letter that points to my body, my mind, my hopes, my priorities, my personality, my pain, my fears. "I" represents whatever it is that is standing on this side of the next word in the sequence, which is "Love".
Love
A four letter word that contains all that a human can say about being drawn beyond the limits of "I". It it is more than attraction, although that may be where it begins. It is deeper than commitment, although without commitment there is no love. "Love" describes the consent spoken by "I" to be united with (indeed grafted to) whatever it is that is the "other", the "you" that follows the word "Love".
You
"You" are not "me", of course! "You" are the someone or the something outside of my skin, beyond the line of what "I" am. But because "I" have proclaimed that there is "love" between us, I have declared my consent to let "love" create a permeable membrane between "you" and "me".
And when the "you" in the sentence is God, my willingness to love "you", causes a transformation where "I" begin to dissolve. Your love is so immense that "you" saturate my being. My heart melts into yours, and bursts with magnificence that encircles every moment of my day -- at least every moment when I am willing to say: I love you.
Loving God enables me, to hear God say “I love you” to me which frees me to look at another "other", another "you", and say, "I love you!".
I
One single letter that contains all of me. One single letter that points to my body, my mind, my hopes, my priorities, my personality, my pain, my fears. "I" represents whatever it is that is standing on this side of the next word in the sequence, which is "Love".
Love
A four letter word that contains all that a human can say about being drawn beyond the limits of "I". It it is more than attraction, although that may be where it begins. It is deeper than commitment, although without commitment there is no love. "Love" describes the consent spoken by "I" to be united with (indeed grafted to) whatever it is that is the "other", the "you" that follows the word "Love".
You
"You" are not "me", of course! "You" are the someone or the something outside of my skin, beyond the line of what "I" am. But because "I" have proclaimed that there is "love" between us, I have declared my consent to let "love" create a permeable membrane between "you" and "me".
And when the "you" in the sentence is God, my willingness to love "you", causes a transformation where "I" begin to dissolve. Your love is so immense that "you" saturate my being. My heart melts into yours, and bursts with magnificence that encircles every moment of my day -- at least every moment when I am willing to say: I love you.
Loving God enables me, to hear God say “I love you” to me which frees me to look at another "other", another "you", and say, "I love you!".
1 comment:
What happens when the "you" in the above statement becomes "God"? The idea that there exists only the slimmest of membranes between God and me increases the faith that one day even that membrane will disappear. As 1 Corinthians 13:13 states "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
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