Backsliding in Love

In our conversation Saturday we expressed our consternation at how often we fail to love, often because we react in passion to events that set us off. I related a disagreement I had with my dad, whom I love very much, but not then. Another discussed a similar altercation with a co-worker. The third observed that she was trying to learn rules of "dis-engagement:" Don't be judgmental; don't be drawn in; allow the person you are dealing with (trying to love) to be unreasonable.

As happens often enough, I soon after read a passage that helped me focus on this backsliding and its remedy. In a nutshell: Real love is participation in "divine kenosis." Here is what Kierkegaard says in Works of Love:

Christianly to descend from heaven means limitlessly to love the person, just as you see him. If, then, you will become perfect in love, strive to fulfill this duty, in loving to love the person one sees, to love him just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses, love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferent away or turns to love someone else, love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you.

Quoted from Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion, at p. 93.

It shouldn't be too hard to understand why Christian love is a command. ("A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34).") We are all backsliders. At this point we should ask forgiveness and, in surrender, try (yet again) to follow the path of kenotic love, the path Jesus walked, to which he beckons: "Follow me."

Listen to "She Drives Me Crazy" (Fine Young Cannibals)

Listen to "What is Love, Anyway?" Howard Jones

Listen to "Heaven is a Place On Earth" (Belinda Carlisle)