Life has taught me a few things about "love". The Greeks were point on when they separated love into 4 different types. To review the different types, in a way that will no way shape or form encompass the depth of the types of love; we have Agape, which is a Spiritual love that is seasoned with unconditional love. Then we have Eros; the burning passion we feel for a lover in an intimate, sexual way. Philia, which is a mental love that we feel for a friend or family member and Storge, which is love that is felt by a parent for their children. All four types of love carry with them characteristics that make them uniquely their own.
In 1 Corinthians 13, is Paul rolling the 4 into one? We can examine love from a pure intellectual stance or we can play with it and combine spiritual and philosophical stand points. I am a person who likes to look at the whole picture. What life has taught me is that God's love for me is VERY separate from the ways that I am capable of loving and understanding love. God's love is indeed something super human and extraordinary. I've tried to love with the love that I have felt He has given me but inevitably fail. I've managed to implement some of the unconditionality of God's love into the ways that I display and present love to others but cannot seem to harness the purity of God's love. In true human form, a lot of my love is seasoned with a desire to receive something in return. Philosophically this makes sense. A basic human desire is to decrease our pain and discomfort. Inherently we have a desire to be loved and cared for. I believe it is very rare for us to give of ourselves and love without expectation of receiving something in return that makes us feel good about who we are and adds meaning to our existence. I'm not certain that there has ever been a time where I gave out love or kindness without some expectation of reaping some benefit myself. I have loved and cared for my homeless kids deeply but through that I was able to feel a huge sense of purpose and meaning in my life. I was able to go home and feel accomplished for the day and wake up with a larger than life meaning to get up. Though I could just be looking through a cynical lens. Would I have cared for them equally as much if I didn't go home and wake up feeling as such? Probably.
What about the love that destroys? According to 1 Corinthians 13, a love like that isn't characteristically love at all. I use 1 Corinthians 13 definition of love because I believe it to be the most beautiful description of love to date. I use it because as a believer, I am called to use it as my definition. I do not contest it but that isn't without reason. I do not contest it because for me, it is truth. I watch a lot of crime TV shows. In a lot of them we see how EROS can take on the form of evil and lend itself to seek and destroy like a heat seeking missile. Is that love? I've been in love several times in my life. All of those relationships took whatever combination of 3 loves that we felt and carried them into some perverse land where anger, hurt, insecurity, and frustration covered the relationship. Such perversion was born out of a genuine love for one another. Such destruction was done because of a sense of love. How can this be?!
I've seen 3 loves played out beautifully (not perfect) in my life; agape (will argue I've seen this in perfect form), philia, and storge. Eros...well, that one has yet to be seen to be exemplified in the manner in which it is described. Perhaps because I am human and humans pervert all perfection. I believe we inherently screw up God's creations to an extent without intent to do so. It's just nature that we cannot ever carry the characteristics of God like He does, because after all, there can only be One God.
Love is a beautiful, gorgeous, amazing thing that pushes us, stretches our knowledge of self and the world, and makes us wake up the next day. Without love, we are mere shells that carry a distain for life and all those encompassed in it. All four loves are beautiful and perfect in intent and all four loves are subject to the perversion of humanity. We live by it and we die by it. Like most things, we fall short with it but the joy we can take in the shortcomings is that if lucky, we are afforded the opportunity to wake up tomorrow and seek to love stronger, better, more complete than the day before. And that is God's call. "To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving" - Khalil Gibran
Without a doubt, love can be a giant joke compared to what it was meant to be and in the same, it IS the most brilliant thing ever! No one is exempt from our stained way of living, yet no one is exempt from being able to receive and give love in a way that can change and alter the course and direction of someone's life or heck, even our own.
Kahlil Gibran on Love
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
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