Love Notes: Final reflections on love

(photo source)

a few days before valentine's day, i thought on posting something from my h4 cle lessons about love, particularly those taken from m. scott peck's book "the road less travelled."

Looking back: God as Love in Salvation History
In salvation history, we have witnessed God’s love, and as we’ve discussed before, love as eros and agape. With M. Scott Peck’s definition of love involving the willful extension of oneself, it is once again applicable to our relationship with God. God made Himself known and came to aid the Israelites and thus, God’s infinite ego came to include man; man became part of God. But the relationship does not end there for God calls on man to love. Man thus allows God into his ego boundaries, to let God dwell in him and be part of his being. Moreover, God went even further and became man in Jesus Christ, who exemplified a model of love. Christ extended his ego boundaries towards the marginalized and the rich. Christ’ perfect love (life and sacrifice) moves us to love as he did. He shows us the power of love as a fulfillment of one’s being and thus we are all called to be Christ-like in loving ourselves and others. 

God is Love, both eros and agape
God gave humanity the freedom to love. We are drawn to God (eros, cathexis), but are called to freely choose and extend ourselves for that God (agape, breaking down ego boundaries). The result is that we continue to grow in freedom and in love.

We have the freedom to choose what we do, or at the least, how we feel and what we think of our lives. We have the freedom to do things that promote our growth and the growth of others. We have the freedom to love.

Hence, love is not mere attraction, nor is it mere sacrifice. Rather, freedom and love are messy, complicated things that require serious effort and attention. It is easy to simplify love according to what we see in the movies. Unfortunately, life is not that easy. However, because of that, it is much more rewarding. 

From Love to Justice
Love is the ultimate vocation that we are called to. It is our universal vocation, which can be uniquely expressed by every individual. However, after understanding the nature love—it is true; that our vocation, as much as it is ours, is one that involves others. We must love our neighbors.

Love of the beloved, though good, is not yet the fullest expression of love. Love must transcend this and be infused to society or it should become the standard of conduct in life. With this, we need to extend ourselves not just to those close to us, but to society in general, and more precisely our neighbor. This is where the call to justice begins.