Love

So right now it's, again, not Wednesday. It's Saturday night.... And tomorrow (being Sunday) I leave for a week of service in which I have no computer or cell phone or anything.... SO one again I must write my post ahead of time! Actually, I was just going to skip next week, but I admit I've been excited for this week's theme and I don't want to pass it up. I also apoligize if this is rather long. I have a lot to say.

Now, obviously I haven't read anyone else's posts, but I'm willing to bet, well I don't know what, but I'm willing to bet something that you mostly talked about boys and crushes and whatnot. And that's fine. But by only talking about romantic love, we're missing out on all that the word means. So what does love mean? As always, we go to Wikipedia for the answer.

"Love is any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection and attachment."

Okay. Now Google image search.... And I've got a bunch of red hearts. I still don't know what love means. (What?! The internet couldn't answer my question?! Impossible!) The thing is, I think love is a thing of such great magnitude that no words or images or thoughts or blog posts can explain it completely. Nevertheless, I'll try.

Notice Wikipedia said "any number of emotions" -- but we've only got one word. Well, those clever ancient Greeks had it all figured out and used multiple words for love. For example, the romantic love that our culture fixates on so much is called "eros." Eros is described as being "passionate" and "sensual" -- this is what we're used to. But there are two other really important words the Greeks have. For example, "philia." Whether we know it or now, we've all experienced this kind of love. Philia is the relationship we have with our friends. When we share things in common with others, when we enjoy spending time with others, when we feel loyalty to others, that's love. It's an incredibly important type of love, too, and one that I think we ignore or take for granted way too often. I think what bothers me about our fixation on eros is that we forget about philia.

The third Greek word for love is "Agape." This is the kind of love that I think is hardest to explain, but I think it is by far the most important. According to Wikipedia, agape has a "deeper sense of true love" than eros. Agape is more of a .... sense of compassion for mankind. It's this kind of love that connects us with the rest of the world -- we have nothing in common with those suffering in third world countries, so it isn't philia, and we're not romantically attracted to them, so it's definitely not eros. But we have the common bond of being human beings and this love with what connects us.

I once heard the phrase, "I don't believe in God, but I do believe in good." Now, I do believe in God, beacuse I believe God and good are the same thing, but that's a different story. The "good" spoken of in that phrase, I think, refers to the love that we all feel in our lives. The point of the phrase is that, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof, we all feel love. We all have those moments that no words can describe, when we just feel that there is more to us than just cells and tissues -- call it a soul, call it God, call it "being made of awesome," whatever. There's more to us than just us, and I think that extra thing is love. And we all have it, and that's what brings us together. And when we come together, we can do truly amazing things.

So, um, that's what love means to me! And now I leave you with a song, actually. Please don't be put off by the fact that it's Christian rock. I swear it's just a good song relevant to my post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-he2DohfwWE

Have a good week, everyone! I'll be sure to tell you all how my week went in my next post!

Oh, and I love you all!

P.S. I know there wasn't an awesome thing listed today.... But I was preoccupied with our theme....

~Magdelina