Valentine's Day is coming soon and romantic love will be the primary love named, celebrated, rekindled, and even pled for ("Will you be my valentine?") on Feburary 14th. Some, rightly, will use the day to thank others for, and to share love, outside the romantic ambit. Love, we know, has more than one type, though we, unlike the Greeks, use only one word to stretch across the many kinds. Classically, Greeks and others used different words to speak of affection (for things and persons), of brotherly or sisterly love, of eros (romantic love) which some subdivide by using the word venus to refer to the presence of physical desire in eros, and of sacrificial, other-regarding love. This last way of loving, giving and caring selflessly for others, Christian know as agapé.
Making sacrifices for the sake of others goes against the grain of at least part of our nature. So, loving others in this way doesn't always comes easy, even in the best of times. Now the present pressures of the pandemic make it perhaps even more difficult to be mindful of others, to seek my neighbor's best, even my friend's best. So much, after all, is currently pressed into our pysches (uncertainties, anxieties, information...the latest headlines!) that 'getting out of our heads,' as we sometimes say, to focus on others is rare or when it does happen does not last for very long. What we might recall, however, is that agapé is a love that describes God's constant love for us and--pause to take this in--God's love flowing through us. God's love is available, on tap, ready to flow. What God commands--love one another, make love your aim, love as I have loved you--God enables. What God desires, God supports.
Part of the foundations of youth ministry here is teach our youth how to love others. Starting in March (by Zoom) will be the first discussion in a longer series. The first theme is "Loving my neighbor in these difficult times." This will be followed by talks on "Loving my difficult neighbor, my hurting neighbor, my needy neighbor, my different neighbor....and so on, as various angles on this theme come to mind. My hunch is that many of us, just by pausing to think about these matters for a moment, can reframe our perpsective on these challenging days. We can keep circles of love vibrant and expanding. God, after all, does not become mute, silent, inactive, unloving or ineffective depending on conditions. God's relationship to us is steady, active, faithful, constant, purposive, loving, and real. God's love is ready to move us, and move through us.