Follow-up to May 4th's Post

A couple days ago I was pondering a quote containing these lines:

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person..."

Surely these attributes of love describe the purest, truest, most God-like form of love. Such a love sees a relative and, rather than saying, "I love her--she's my granddaughter." It says, "I love her--she's Ruthie!" Between friends, rather than saying, "I love him--he's my friend." It says, "I love him--he's Tom!"; better yet, "I love him--he's ol' Tommy Boy!"

It's a kind of love that sees the very person rather than the relationship held between the lover and that person; the latter kind of 'love' is prone to self-centeredness but the former is not. Something tells me that young children have no familiarity with the kind of love that sees the relationship and not the beloved; they can see nothing but the beloved--which, given what Jesus told us about children and the Kingdom of Heaven, suggests to me that this kind of others-fixated love is that which bubbles forth from the very Life and Soul of the Kingdom of Heaven.

One Thing I Know

For all the countless Biblical interpretations and theories about God, none of them matter one lick unless the mind in which they are being considered has been born again. For outside of this passage from darkness to light, no theory--be it right or wrong--can make a lasting existential difference to the soul. The foundational question is, "Do I know God?" Are we satisfied with anything less; worshiping Him with weekly church attendance and uncontemplated, mindless prayers as if, in the words of George MacDonald, '...He were a heathen deity'? Come to Him--come to know Him through whatever means necessary and the troubled ponderings of your heart will transform into the very joy of life's existence--the very means by which you enter deeper into the joy of knowing Him better.

A Quote about Love

Just thought I'd share a quote about love that was written by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of World War II concentration camps. The quote is from pages 111-112 of the book Man's Search for Meaning--a book I'd highly recommend.

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."