What's Love Got to do With It

In discussions and announcements of the latest gay rights, an often repeated phrase is that now we have the right to love who we want to love. This is just an attempt to attach an emotional string to an issue that is currently front and center in order to cater to the specious desires of a those who wish to reduce love to merely its sexual component. The fact is that for a long time people have had the right to love whomever they want.

Philosophers and theologians have generally recognized four type of love storge, philio, eros and agape. C. S. Lewis in his book Four Loves describes them.

Storge refers to a love or affection toward a family member such as love between parents and their children.
Philo is an affection between friends.
Eros is romantic love and agape is a spiritual love.

The exercise of any of these forms of love does not and should not need any civil authority to permit their practice. For very understandable reasons society has, however, placed taboos and restrictions on the way these loves are expressed. Many of these restrictions and taboos center on the sexual aspects of love. Might I suggest that it is these taboos that this phrase is referring to. Each of the forms of love has at one time or another had a sexual component attached to it. Each culture, society or community has placed certain permissions and restrictions on the sexual behavior allowed in each of these forms of love.

Currently, both familial affections and close friendships are considered not to include sexual intercourse. Cultural mores establish the accepted behavior in each of these forms of love. Incest is not acceptable, friends engaging in sexual intercourse are recognized as having moved to an erotic relationship. Agape, as spiritual, is concerned with complete self-giving and so is free of the reciprocity characteristic of erotic love. None of these three forms of love require permission from civil authority to allow one to engage in them.

Neither does erotic love. In its more elevated characteristics it needs no civil permissions in order to be exercised. Mutual self-giving, a single-minded regard for the other and its solemn privilege to procreate, educate and so carry on the advancement of the human condition, these are all aspects of erotic love that need no civil authority to validate or affirm them.

So what then has society been given by finally allowing someone to love who they want to love? In such a statement love is reduced to merely its sexual component, completely divorcing sex from its higher giftedness. Reducing love to mere self-gratification. Really, what’s love got to do with it?

Reading the Mystics

I am sure many other Christians have had the same urge as I have had. The urge, after some brief glimpse of the work of a mystic, a desire to read more. So we procure a book or treatise by the mystic only to find much of their writings dense and incomprehensible.

In May I ran across a poem by author-poet Scott Cairns a Professor at the University of Missouri. The poem was in an anthology, Francis and Clare in poetry. (See post of May 9) I found the poem to be quite moving and so sought out more of Professor Cairns work. I obtained a copy of his book Endless Life poems of the mystics and discovered in it the answer to approaching the mystics with understanding and an appreciation of the beauty of their thoughts. He has taken the prose writings of thirty seven mystics and rendered into verse a sampling of their reflections. Professor Cairn’s poetic style is easy and beautiful and transmits the musings of the mystics in very readable verse. Check it out. I offer a sample of his poetry based on the writings of St. Melito of Sardis.

How It Was

The earth trembled; its foundations

shook like silt; the sun, chagrined,

fled the scene, and every mundane

element scattered in retreat. The day

became the night: for light could not endure

the image of the Master hanging on a tree.

All creation was astonished, perplexed

and stammering, What new mystery is this?

The Judge is judged, and yet He holds His peace;

the Invisible One is utterly exposed, and yet

is not ashamed; the Incomprehensible is grasped,

and will not turn indignant; the Immensity

is circumscribed, and acquiesces; the absolutely

Unattainable suffers, and yet does not avenge;

the Immortal dies, and utters not a word;

the Celestial is pressed into the earthen grave,

and He endures! What new mystery is this?

The whole creation, I say, was astonished;

but, when our Lord stood up in Hades –

trampling death underfoot, subduing

the strong one, setting every captive free –

then all creation saw clearly that for its sake

the Judge was condemned, et cetera.

For our Lord, even when He deigned

to be born, was condemned in order

that He might show mercy, was bound

that He might loose, was seized

that He might release, suffered

that He might show compassion, died

that He might give life, was laid in the grave

that He might rise, might raise.

Heart-to-Heart Chatter

At the heart of Christianity is taking Christ to heart.  That means encountering Christ as a real presence, a real human being in my life.  I can't have a personal relationship with Christ as a concept, an idea, and ideal.  How do I move to encounter Christ as God, but also as a human person?

If Augustine's Confessions can be taken as an example, the first step -- a step that took many years for Augustine -- is conversion.  The first 8 books of the Confessions detail that journey.  Then comes the rest of life, which, according to Augustine, involves being Christ's servant and companion.  Augustine had a colorful expression for this phase as he closed the first chapter of Book 9.  He said, "and I used to chatter to you." (et garriebam tibi).

That strikes me as a genuine mark of personal encounter. Chattering away shows familiarity in my relationship with another person, and that the relationship is alive and well.  Of course, chattering away with God, as Augustine did, is another word for prayer.

Lord, help me to be garrulous with you, to chatter away with you, even while I listen for your answering word.