From Karma to Grace. John Van Auken

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      Let’s now study each of the Fruits of the Spirit in an effort to understand them better so that we may apply them in our thinking, speaking, and acting and thereby become one with the Spirit, expanding our hearts and minds for a more soulful life. In this manner we will realize the great potential that God knows is in each of us, even the least among us, as the Bible often phrases it.

      4

      The Fruit of Love

      In spite of all indignant protests to the contrary, the fact remains that love, its problems and its conflicts, is of fundamental importance in human life and, as careful inquiry consistently shows, is of far greater significance than the individual suspects.

      Carl Jung; Two Essays in Analytical Psychology

      The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

      Somerset Maugham; The Summing Up

      To love and be loved is among the highest of human pleasures. The three warmest words to hear and to say are “I love you.” Where hate brings contention, strife, faultfinding, and bitterness, love brings patience, understanding, forgiveness, kindness, and joy. Where hate brings destruction and unhappiness, love brings life and happiness.

      Saint Paul said that love is “the greatest.” Jesus listed it as the top commandment, summing up the works and teachings of all the laws and prophets. More songs are written about love than anything else. But few of us really understand love.

      It is the fate of sensual love to become extinguished when it is satisfied; for it to be able to last, it must . . . be mixed with purely tender components—with such, that is, as are inhibited in their aims.

      Sigmund Freud; The Letters of Sigmund Freud

       The Science of Love

      From a scientific point of view, love is a combination of the forces of evolution and biochemistry.

      Evolution’s unswerving drive for survival of the species has grabbed onto human bonding because the weaving of pairs of individuals into interdependent couples increases the reproductive success of the parents and the survival rate of their infants.

      Evolution has developed a human body that is loaded with powerful chemicals to help ensure the success of human bonding. The “love chemical” is phenylethylamine (PEA). When this is released in the brain of any human, he or she will feel uncontrollably amorous, romantic, and “turned on” by the person who is the object of these feelings. Follow this up with a little oxytocin (often called “the cuddle chemical”), and you have the lovemaking sensations of relaxed satisfaction and attachment. For the relationship to endure, however, endorphins must be released in the brain. If they are, then the love relationship endures.

      Evolution’s drive—to create human bonding for the greater good of the species—and powerful biochemistry make love one of the strongest forces in human nature.

      The emotion, the ecstasy of love, we all want, but God spare us the responsibility.

      Jessamyn West; Love is Not What You Think

       The Psychology of Love

      The ability to love and express love is dependent upon childhood caregiving. Much research has documented three bonding orientations in children that carry over into adulthood. In psychological terms, the three bonding orientations are (1) secure bonding, (2) ambivalent bonding, and (3) avoidant bonding.

      Secure bonding develops when childhood care is consistent and comforting to the child and offers a safe base from which to explore the world. Such children grow into adults that have a secure orientation toward bonding, which results in an orientation that engenders trust, lasting relationships, shared intimacy, and the ability to work out conflicts through compromise.

      Ambivalent bonding develops when the childhood care is inconsistent, creating doubts in the child about the caregiver’s availability and the safety of the base from which to explore the world. Such children grow up to view themselves poorly and become preoccupied with keeping their romantic partners close at hand and firmly committed.

      Avoidant bonding develops when the childhood-care needs are repeatedly rejected or the caregiver is frequently upset or violent. Raised in such an environment, these children develop avoidant patterns. As adults, they will avoid emotional intimacy, looking down upon it or dreading any hints of it.

      This is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we were going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred.

      Rebecca West, quoted in Rebecca West: Artist and Thinker by Peter Wolfe

       The Philosophy of Love

      From a philosophical perspective, love has been categorized into three major types, using the Greek words eros, philia, and agape.

      Eros refers to love that is passionate, intense, and sexual, even erotic. However, Plato held that, deep down, eros actually seeks transcendental beauty, but human beauty reminds one of that transcendent beauty.

      Philia is fondness and appreciation of the other, beyond self. It is friendship, family loyalty, community ties, love for one’s work, and the like. Philia is associated with “brotherly,” as in Philadelphia (phila-delphi, city of brotherly love).

      Agape refers to God’s love for His/Her children and to humanity’s love for one another. Such love does not seek anything in return for its expression. However, it has an ethical standard and may therefore impartially determine another’s warranting love—something we acknowledge today as tough love, meaning a love that calls the other to higher levels of behavior. In the New Testament, written in Greek, many of the “love” statements use the word agape.

      One makes mistakes: that is life. But it is never quite a mistake to have loved.

      Romain Rolland, Summer

       The Spirituality of Love

      Throughout the Bible, love is most important and powerful. When we think of power, even spiritual power, we rarely think of love. Yet, from Genesis to the Revelation, the Bible indicates that love evokes the highest, most godly of powers and actually is the nature of God. Love brings us closest to our true, divine nature—our angelic nature. Many biblical passages teach that of all the things a person can learn and do in this world, nothing reflects godliness more than love.

      The two greatest commandments are found in both the Old and New Testaments. The first:

      You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

      Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:37

      And the second commandment:

      You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

      Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39

      The actual Greek word used here is plesion, meaning a “close-by person.” This expands “neighbor” to include humans within our orb of life.

      Perhaps the most quoted love passage in Scripture is the disciple Paul’s famous statement in 1 Corinthians 13:13:

      Now abide faith, hope, and love, these