It was probably three years ago now when myself, Troy and Jake Franklin met at an inconspicuous Applebees in early June and made an apparently weak pact to read C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" over the summer. Well, as of a few weeks ago, I've completed the piece and I'm going to have to update my Facebook favorites page. I'd have to say that it bears my official universal recommendation. Whether you're a Christian or not, I think everyone needs have this on the bedpost at some time. It's pretty much impossible to go through life without picking up the all too common falsities surrounding the the Christian faith and in the interest of simple understanding, Mere Christianity is an important read.
I could probably write my own book on just my responses to C.S. Lewis, but for now I'd like to focus on one crazy little thing called love... A lot of this could be traced back to a long winded post on marriage that burned out on me a few months back, but I do this chiefly so I can just start cataloging my reactions to Mere Christianity and return a favor, if you will, to an unnamed associate. In that nonexistent marriage post I hearkened to my frustration and confusion to today's use of the word love and its perceived labels assigned by society. Who doesn't love society...? Perhaps its just the constant evolution of the spoken word, but much like my views on "pop-dating" today, I don't understand or particularly subscribe to the current concept of love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
Everything from romantic comedies to candy wrappers tantalizes the emotions with delightful little notions of affection. But what if these insubstantial axioms are merely this fallen world's best attempts to delineate a conception that transcends our human existence? So often we wave the banner of love without a desire to define it and so intertwine it with the yearnings of our selfish hearts. Why do we utilize such a powerful concept so recklessly and then act so shocked when what we have tried to construct with it so painfully shatters to pieces?
Perhaps the largest reason why we in the English speaking world so vaguely discern the love we speak of is that our words fail to match the aspects. If only English were more like Greek, the language of most of the New Testament. Wikipedia clarifies the Greek definitions as such:
The New Testament, which was written in Greek, only used two Greek words for love: agapē and philia. However, there are several Greek words for Love.
- Agapē. In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love seen as creating goodness in the world, it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for others.
- Philia. Also used in the New Testament, philia is a human response to something that is found to be delightful. Also known as "brotherly love".
- Eros (sexual love) is never used in the New Testament.
- Storge (needy child-to-parent love) only appears in the compound word philostorgos (Rom 12:10).
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
Often, we read through the list of characteristics and find them quite obvious and agreeable, but when put into practice, we fall miserably short and quickly resort to something less selfless and not so hard. We claim to love as if it were easy; some kind of second nature that utterly compels us to remain devoted endlessly. How trite and romanticistic... You want to know what love looks like? Here's your checklist. Let's not fool ourselves, how much do our mundane little assumptions on love truly match up? Part of our being human is facing the fact that we cannot in fact emulate true love. Much in the same way that we cannot ourselves be holy. However, no one can say that the bar has not been set.
Now, an especially frustrating concept that it thoroughly confused by man, the unfortunate blurring between attraction and love. As Lewis would say "the difference between being in love and love itself."
An excerpt from "Mere Christianity"
"What we call 'being in love ' is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, 'the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs'. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called 'being in love' usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending 'They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married', then then it says what probably never was or never would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But of course, ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense- love is distinct from 'being in love'-is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
... People get from books the idea that if you married the right person you may expect to go on 'being in love for ever. As a result, when they find that they are not, they think this proves that they made a mistake and are entitled to change-not realising that that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one."
Lewis goes on to make a case for embracing the new and more intimate aspects of marriage just as we greatly enjoy initially "being in love." The trap we can fall into is holding on to those old pleasures that we experienced in our youth, spending the rest of our lives trying to recapture the old feelings that have been hopelessly subsided. I'm sure we can all think of a few examples of this. Lewis continues by frowning on the notion that falling in love is a helpless endeavor that cannot be fought. So when some new person with a beautiful spirit crosses our path, we must "follow our heart." Ahh, the great trap of sexualizing every aspect of love in order to chase our fallen desires. Can we not love outside of marriage? Of course we can. We can love individuals for who they are without throwing sacred promises to the wind.
So it seems that love involves a great deal of work and commitment, especially when it is not easy. But it sounds so unromantic doesn't it? Why can't I follow my feelings? Sigh... Again you're letting the world dictate what you think, what you want to think. In doing that, you've taken an inherently good thing and making it an obsession, leaving no room for the fulfillment of God's love.
So, I've drawn out (drawn out indeed) a few things for myself, I hope that you can take something as well. Love's potency requires much care and dedication. Don't let yourself or others butcher its meaning. And read Mere Christianity!
