Tags
drought, fifty, jubilee, love, reflection, spirituality, succour
A few posts ago, I wrote about love. I am no expert on this topic but have an obsession with it due to my occupation being centred around it. No, I don’t organize speed dating gatherings (although I would quite like to) but I do write fantasy, wisdom fiction for young adults with strong themes of love and belovedness. However, this is just an adult disguise for the truth that I am a huge succour (or sucker) for the passions and perfection of pure love. I am a die-hard romantic and will possibly die prematurely because of it (but hopefully not because I am a slow learner and need all the time I can get to work this stuff out!)
I turned fifty a few weeks ago and am attempting to see this as the beginning of a Jubilee season in my life. Jubilee is an old Hebrew celebration that comes around every fifty years. Land is returned to original owners, and people are expected to renew a society based on egalitarian values. I believe there was quite a bit of eating and drinking and being merry with neighbours and friends. (At least, it’s hard for me to imagine any better way of celebrating Jubilee.)
As part of my celebrations, I want to invite you (my blog friends from around the world and friends/family closer to home) to write a couple of lines about love in the comments section after this post.
After posting It’s about Love with a question that asked ‘What do we find so difficult about the concept that God is Love?’, someone asked me ‘But what is love?’ My feeble attempt to describe love in the post had not helped this person, and this person was not a young person. So, I have gone back to the drawing board on this one and am calling in reinforcements (i.e. you) to help.
One of the sensual ways that I recognize love is through the smell of the first rain on the dry earth. While I was watching a local football match the other day, one of my friends enlightened me to the fact that there was a grown-up word for this smell. It is petrichor. (As a writer, I should have known this but I don’t know many big words really. This is why I write for young humans, or humans like myself that get confused by sophisticated English words.) I was so excited that there was one single word to describe this joyous experience that I wrote an acrostic piece of writing about other experiences that help me know what love is using the word PETRICOR. Here it is:
People who help me to believe I’ve turned out just the way Creator intended when S/He sang me into being
Everything and everyone seems to be new and beautiful and non-judgemental
Time becomes irrelevant and immeasurable
Resting in the friendship of Christ and other humans
I am who I am (regardless of the messiness, traumas or opinions of those who fear) and I am beautiful
Co-incidences that happen reminding me of the powerful loving attentiveness of Yahweh
Healing
Over-riding sense of protectedness as if a large broody mother bird is watching over me
Redemption (this is one of those big words I don’t really understand but I will continue with it regardless) of hurts, failures or botched-up relationships from the past
Please throw me a pearl of wisdom about love from your strand of many.
God and me 
If God is love, then love is the Spirit of Yahweh, because Yahweh is a Spirit (John 4:24). So love is Yahweh experienced in our souls, the full grandness of the universe and all that it envelopes.
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Thank you, yes.
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I don’t believe that I even feel love. I feel compassion, but not love. My mother was the last person to tell me they loved me, and she died some years ago. Generally, I experience people’s hatred, but never their love. That’s why I like being alone, which, thankfully, I can almost always be.
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Thank you for your comment. Maybe compassion is one of the highest expressions of love? I am very aware of people’s judgements and therefore like being alone also. Do you think it is reasonable for us to hope for more overt expressions of compassion in the future (and less hatred) to enable us to grow in our experience of love?
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Love, like God, is a word that cries out for definition. It means different things to different people and it can be context specific. And just as the eskimos have several different words for snow, you’re probably aware that the ancient greeks had several (6 I think) different words for love. One might choose to see them on a scale from Eros (sexual passion) through to Agape (unconditional love for all) which is often referred to as God love. It is characterised as giving with no expectation of return and usually has no emotional connotation.
When I remember to give thanks I remember that God gives us the greatest gift of all, and with no expectation that we should use it any particular way. We are even ‘allowed’ to give it back if we so choose.
I believe it belittles the idea of God to associate any of the connotations of love involving emotions. Surely this is painting God in human image. Which is not to say that we humans ought not feel a heart swelling, loving appreciation for our life and this amazing universe that we are now getting to see in more and more of its glory.
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Yes, Agape is a wonderfully unconditional gift to us all including the grace to refuse it. I disagree with the idea that including emotions (God’s or our own) belittles any connotation of love. They are a part of who we are and, I believe, a part of who God is so excluding the colors and chemistry of the emotions from Agape (or any form of love) does not make sense to me,
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How about cynosure, diaphanous, ebullience, efflorescence, embrocation, epiphany, felicity, gossamer, halcyon, imbue, ineffable, inglenook, lagniappe, lilt, lissome, mellifluous, onomatopoeia, opulent, panacea, pastiche, redolent, riparian, scintilla, seraglio, sumptuous, tintinnabulation? These are a few of my favourite things 😉
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Hey, here are some seriously good words! I will have to look half of them up. Thanks.
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For me love is….
– unconditional friendship
– an unexpected and undeserved gift from God or a friend
– an intentional, reassuring and gentle touch
– the warm envelop and soft optimism of 25c at 7am or 7pm
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Beautiful! Thank you Eli.
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I think love is about giving, with no expectation of having it returned. Funnily enough it often comes back to us in spades when we just step back and let it happen.
Love to all xx
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Thank you Paula. I like this understanding of love: generous, unconditional and freely-given.
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