Tracks In The Dust

The Condition of Love

At this time of the year, being spring ( in the US anyway) and also Easter, the subject of love comes up often it seems in blogs, and around my home. More often than not the discussion of love lands on the idea of what true love means. It is interesting the amount of opinions this topic will surface, especially when it seems almost all of us are striving to find it in their lives. Maybe we are wanting to embrace it because we recognise it and value it so much, or we want to work hard to define it because we are unsure that what we have is truly love.

One of my fellow bloggers  recently blogged: 

Greek has three words to describe love. There is Eros, meaning a love founded on craving and desire. Such is love for specific food, activities, and other things. Second is Filia, meaning love in the context of interdependence (in a family or a community), where it is highly focused on “give and take”. Examples are: I love my family, I love my boyfriend, I love my best friend. Third is Agape, meaning the total self giving kind of love, the highest form of loving, where nothing is asked of return and self-sacrifice is of prime importance.  Thank you Aix for your post! http://aixwrites.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/do-you-love-me/

We all seem to be searching for the Agape-type of love in our lives, unconditional and pure. But because we are human we most always will fall short.  Statements that start with “I love you…” and add the words “until” or “except when you…” or worse, the next words are “but”… or… “however” – always seem to be tied to a list of conditions. In the end it appear it’s the most “human” kind of love. Sure, erotic love like lust/desire can create a spark- it can even be interpreted as the kind of love that is give/take. In fact it seems like in today’s world Eros-type of love often gets identified as a more sincere type of love.

But how many of us can say we have experienced that Agape love in our lives? The totally unconditional love that has no ties or conditions. How do we ever attain that love in our lives? As soon as we “expect” it we have already provided a condition. When we attempt to provide it, there always seem to be boundaries to contain it.  Love of and for my children and my wife comes closer than I know toward that unconditional love.  Close family, relatives and dearest of friends can come close.

So as we search for the verb “to love” as unconditional one, we may fall short. In fact there is only One in the history of the world that I know of that provided the level of love that we all strive for. And for that, I am grateful.   So I ask my children, as they are looking for perfection in love, as they attempt perfection with their love – do it as purely as they can. Make each day count and each condition be one that reflects the goodness of love in its purest form.