Opus 2023-132: The Pool of Love

I was thinking about love, stimulated by an evening with my grandchildren.

I started thinking about how much I can love them, thought about my children, then went on a tangent:  Do I love my son-in-law as much as I love my daughter?  It was not hard to come to a clear “no” and I asked myself why that was true.

I started thinking about how love is not just a current experience but it also has a history.  It is not stagnant but dynamic, thus it is like a faucet pulsing out of your heart and mind.  You can have equal amounts going out at any one time but the faucet that has been on longer will have a larger pool beneath it.  It will have irrigated and carved a much more dynamic landscape because it has had longer to work.  In time, both pools may get big enough that you can’t tell the difference but that can only develop over time.

There is also a sense in which genuine, agape love, cannot be measured like a quantitative thing.  You don’t have five scoops of love as opposed to four.  You love or you don’t.  You are either all in or you are not.

There is also a sense in which it is measured.  The love of God is beyond anything we can reach within ourselves by ourselves.

(Rom 5:5 KJV)  And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

It is possible to love because the Holy Spirit lives in us and Jesus modeled it for us.

(Rom 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I am convinced that this love works itself out in practical ways.  I believe the Christian parents love their children more than pagans do.  There is a level of willingness to sacrifice for others that is there at the root.

I pray that more people will seek the love that God has to offer so they can offer it to those around them and transform the world we see falling apart.

homo unius libri