A Very Little On Loving

     Consider the following statement from a famous advice columnist:

     It is possible to love—and at the same time—a wife, a mother, a sister and a grandmother, cherry pie, football, Lincoln, Rembrandt, and Bach. But we don’t love them all in the same way. – Esther Pauline Lederer, a.k.a. “Ann Landers,” Since You Ask Me

     It’s not a complete enumeration of “loves,” but it does hit some of the high spots. Yet it omits mention of what makes love of any sort possible. Can you “fill in the blank?”

     Don’t try to answer quickly. There’s more to be said on this subject.

* * *

     Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew is one I’ve cited several times:

     But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
     Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

     [Matthew 22:34-40]

     Christ expressed the whole of the New Covenant in those few words: It’s about love. But love, as Ann Landers notes above, comes in many varieties. Which meaning of love applies to God? Which one applies to our neighbor? Is there any common factor between them?

     You have to squint a little to see it. Most never even contemplate it. Its absence from our thinking about love is more significant than you may realize. Despite one seemingly contradictory facet, the Great Commandments are founded on it.

     Love is only possible if there is an “other.” Someone or something that’s not you.

     Our capacity for love is one of our greatest blessings. Yet it would be of no importance were there no “other” to love. Fortunately, the world is filled with “others,” and many opportunities to love them. Granted that it can take some effort.

     When Christ said that:

     If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
     This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
     Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

     [John 15:10-17]

     …He delineated the relationship between God and Man in a specific way. It was the one He first expressed in the Two Great Commandments. Yet note the asymmetry between the “others” involved. We don’t love God “as we love ourselves;” God is infinitely our superior. And as our superior, He commands us. We are fortunate that His commandments are few, simple, and easy to understand.

     Our neighbor doesn’t stand above us. He doesn’t command us, nor do we command him. Christ didn’t instruct us to love our neighbor “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” but “as thyself.” That is appropriate love of neighbor, an “other” of our own stature.

     Concerning the abovementioned “seeming contradiction” in the Great Commandments: “Love” is used metaphorically by the phrase “as thyself.” It means that our natural concern for our personal well-being should extend to the well-being of the neighbor. This is one of those “should be obvious” deals that just about everyone needs explained to him at least once.

* * *

     There’s a great deal more to be said about the varieties of love, but a brief essay on the Web isn’t the place for it. Rather, look up C.S. Lewis’s exposition The Four Loves. Lewis nicely illuminates the distinctions and gradations that love can exhibit. The love commanded of us in the Great Commandments is only one phase of the journey.

     May God bless and keep you all.