ethoughts weekly- Issue 148

Feb 10, 2007

Special Notes:

You can sign up for Wired Parish at wiredparish.com to hear my interview in three installments on Jim Palmer’s podcast show “God, Life, and My Dog Jack”. It costs much less than a book to hear a whole month of a bunch of well-known and/or fascinating people on a variety of truly interesting topics. I have greatly enjoyed my subscription.

On Thursday (2/15) an article of mine will be published at theooze.com. It’s entitled Grace-filled Relationships: Yuck what a Mess.

Identifying Love

The trouble with hormones and biology are the terrible confusion they cause us about love.

Most of us realize that love extends far beyond physically loving another. Yet, physical love, or Eros, (the sensual or sexual romantic kinds of love,) often presents itself as the archetype for love. Eros is Latin, from the Greek, literally translated as “sexual love”. From it, comes the word erotic, and all the rest. Eros though, encompasses all emotions leading to that variety of human interaction. In our culture, or in our minds, this type of love may portray the most hoped for, and most pursued kind of interaction. There is a bono fide fixation on Eros love. There is a kind of "love industry" of there. (Love is a VERY loose term in this case.) The movies, the love songs, the art, the books, the love letters, and, of course, the more vulgar enterprises, highlight the fascination and preoccupation with Eros.

Soon it will be Valentine’s Day. We will see mainly Eros, or some more appropriate variant, displayed everywhere. In countless commercials and point of purchase advertising. Romantic gestures are heralded as the hallmark of this kind of love. On February 14th Eros-style love is hoped for by singles also, (sometimes bitterly.) Loveless couples whose expectations have been dashed may decry Eros. And in optimal circumstances, Eros is cherished or reignited by committed lovers. Eros is seen as the pinnacle.

Surely, Eros is important. Eros enables connection, procreation, intimacy, and enjoyment, both physical and emotional. It is an essential part of being human. Under the right and healthy circumstances, it is truly one of the sweetest delights in life. I don’t slander it- but, I do question it. Eros is fraught with problems and misrepresentation. To me, the fallacies of Eros out number the truths. People, for all intents and purposes, wrongly worship Eros, and crave it, all while not understanding what it really is.

Eros’ worst trait is its shelf life. It can be so short-lived or empty. In our confused culture, we witness serial monogamy, one-night-stands, flings, divorce, commitment-free relationships, and many other situations that show the transitory nature of the potent and then too-soon-waning Eros. Yet, so many times, we hold an expectation for deeper intimacy via Eros. Yet, Eros, in itself, does not deliver it. Activated or combusted by attraction, biology, hormones, and feelings, Eros burns so bright, we believe it to be something it is not. It fails us, for purely on its own, it fails the whole of love. I’ll soon point out the reason why.

First, witness Romeo and Juliet. They are the poster children for Eros. They made decisions that sealed their deaths based on the fiery infatuation, at the inception of Eros. They decide to be together, no matter the costs, because they are enraptured by the infatuation of ideal love. They mistake romance for a deeper love, and actually die of romance. Some think it’s a beautiful and fanciful story about true love, but I think it’s closer to a story of “Death by Eros”. While sweet for its certain kind of innocence, and wistful or Utopian ardor, the story is still obviously puerile. It’s immature, and therefore incomplete. While a fun diversion, romanticism has no sturdy lifespan. It does not independently congeal to form something much more then feeling, or theory. I think most often Eros plays out with even a cannibalistic nature. From within us, it hopes to be satisfied. It devours itself within us, if Eros does not give way to something beyond itself. If is stays its own, it burns up, and negates itself.

Before you think I’m trying to ruin your Valentine’s Day, I’ll tell you why I think Eros has substantial (potential) consequence. Here's why: Simply put, Eros points to more. You see, I think God has created it as a symbol firstly. Eros is also a math proof in physical form. The equation is 1+1=1. Two become one through love; that is Eros in its representational nutshell. The intimacy of love is pictured physically in the Eros form of love. It is not the end point, but it shows us in a fantastic glimpse, of what love can be. It also symbolizes physically the eternal, like a circle does.

If we see the Eros picture as an arrow pointing to something else, we’ll so realize the wonderful epiphany that friendship can be more intimate than Eros, and more fulfilling. This is so quickly misconstrued in culture, as to be absurd. Our culture says sexual intimacy is the ultimate connection and pleasure. To say otherwise, put one's self in the extreme minority. People can become quickly suspicious of powerful love that is not labeled Eros. But, upon any close examination, the fantasy nature of Eros falls apart, proving the cultural lie I’ve mentioned.

In fact, people greatly fear true transparency and intimacy, the very stuff of authentic love, (the kind Eros points to.) They fear these things both in the presence or absence of Eros love. Same sex, or opposite sex friendship, that is deep and powerful, seems involuntarily or automatically sexualized. Here’s an example, men “know” to only embrace for about three seconds, and then do that firm pat on the back thing they do. That's just one of a million examples. With some kind of quick cultural default feature, hundreds of actions are ruled as “sexual in nature” within our (poisoned) thoughts. We, in gross error, jump to the conclusion that physical love is the end point. Culturally, we let our biology dictate our methods or expressions of love, so we too-infrequently reach a more evolved and sophisticated, higher love. We are secluded, fearing that too much "loving" will make us seem abnormal. Our cultural norms don’t allow so well, to love another thoroughly and still stay unambiguous. We come up with codes of conduct for connection, conversation, and disclosure that can well imprison friendship into a lesser category than the lesser biological Eros coition. In this way, the symbol trumps that which it represents.

Powerful love, that transcends Eros, may seem confounding or unsettling because, when it is experienced, it is enrapturing. To make sense of it, we lump it with some corporeal manifestation, or another. We try to “keep it under control” through classification. We can second-guess powerful love, because is seems too powerful.

I wonder if we can realize that it is so powerful because is does not originate from us. God is love. There is something wild about him, and his love, that scares us off. This is a sad failure of culture to misunderstand powerful love, agape love. Culture misapprehends powerful, risky, life-giving love, so we do too. We don’t often reach benevolence bestowed from the point of true vulnerability, or being emotionally naked before others. These are all the things that Eros illustrates for us in its lesser form.

Our culture is preset to sexualize interactions quickly. We throw in biology, and sexual desire where none is needed or appropriate. We settle for the lesser thing. Eros. I wonder if we could ever have a progression to actualized love beyond Eros, without too much complication. The knee-jerk reaction to sexualized love, most often forces us sometimes to lessen or stop loving, or detour from reaching the fullest kind of love. If we are derailed by Eros, we are cut off from what Eros points to, Agape love.

Agape is transparent, real and honest. It is also merciful love. It is by nature not empty at all. It’s life-giving. It is fueled not by craving, but by grace. It carries traits of nobility. The symbol of it, seen in Eros, points to the kind of love of full compassion, (if we understand the emblem of give and take, and unity, for what it means in the symbol of Eros.) The rich, long-living love of Agape is selfless, self-sacrificing and circular, (or never-ending.) Two become one in the bond of love. The capability is fashioned then for an even greater outpouring of gracious love for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the powerless, and even for our enemies.

I wonder if we can shed ourselves of the Eros fixation enough to understand its symbolism. Will we always be tied to the definitions of love as imposed by the rules of biological, erotic, physical love? Can companions dive ever more deeply into rich, emotionally intimate love without fear that something has gone askew? Perhaps if we are better aware of what love what is.

To sum up, the experience of love and of loving is only symbolized in Eros, because Eros is not the zenith of love. It is a step to the apex of love, which is God. God’s Agape love is the end all, be all of love. When we feel that inner rapture, I believe we are feeling the heart of Agape love. I believe it is the trace of the breath of life, the echo of the kind of incarnational reality given by God in the beginning of humankind. So, we shouldn’t define love in physical terms, but in transcendent ones.

Happy Love Day.

Love some one with wild abandon soon. The boundless form of love, the eternal kind, is Agape love. And so we see, the ancient Scripture proves true, “Perfect love cast out fear.”

Lisa DeLay

©2007