L O V E

L O V E
By Uriah J. Fields

Love is an essential quality of and a central theme in everything that is good and right. Awareness, creative expression and potential-oriented growth cannot exist without love.

Because there are misunderstandings about love, it is incumbent upon this writer to define love. However, before offering a definition of love a few observations about love are in order. First, we need to realize that love is a power. In several previous works, this writer employed the term "love-power." Such references to love is not without significance. Misinterpretations of love, false premises about love, plus widespread tendencies on the part of some people to view love as being more childish than manly, have contributed to a general feeling that love is powerless. Some people believe that love and Christmas are for children. Love is not impotent. Nothing can be further from the truth than to perceive love as being weak. Love is strong and powerful. If "faith can remove mountains," then love can create universal brotherhood and community. Love is the ultimate power in the universe and, singularly, it is the strongest emotion of the human heart.

Some years ago, this writer delivered a lecture to persons attending the A.M.S. School of Alcohol and Narcotic Education at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. In his lecture, he emphasized power as the central characteristic of love. His thesis was challenged by a number of students and some members of the faculty. A  few years later, when he presented a lecture-reading as an exploratory project for the credit course, "The Role of Love in Western Society" at the University of California Extension at Los Angeles (the first course of its kind to be offered at that University), there was a similar reaction to his talk as the one which had occurred in Canada. Yet, this writer has found nothing in his experience as a minister, teacher, counselor, human relations consultant, researcher and student  who continues to seek a growing understanding of love that would cause him to eliminate the word "power" from the composition and expression of love. To the contrary, it appears increasingly clear that the term "love-power" communicates more correctly and effectively, when understood, the true meaning of love. Therefore, in our discussion we will use "love-power" interchangeably with love. Our hope is that the reader will not lose sight on power as a chief attribute and function of love even when the author employs the word love rather than love-power.

Second, love is good. In this sense, love is a verb rather than a noun. Love is the good we do. This is our succinct definition of love. This definition will be expanded upon in this discourse. Actions which we are to call good, like justice itself, cannot simply be opinions of personal preferences or biases. "God is good." When we take one "o" out of good, we have God, and when we leave God out of good, we have "zero." God may be defined or at least understood as the "Totality of all Good." This suggests that good, like God, is all or that all can be good. During Creation, following God's daily acts of creation His refrain was, "And it was good." There is evidence that good, no less than God is immutable or eternal. This is not to say that good cannot be expressed in numerous ways and in the here-and-now. But, however expressed, good has to validate life, embrace beauty and promote health, rather than destructiveness, at least in terms of the intentionality of the love-doer. Joseph Fletcher speaks wisely when he says, "...love alone when well served is always good and right in every situation."

Perhaps, it is because love is mysterious, that no one has ever, to my knowledge, arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love that is acceptable to the majority of those who seek to understand love. While there has not been a lack of pontificators on love, there have been many, among them philosophers, moralists and poets, who have refused to define love. Some of these pontificators have expressed in no uncertain terms, their inability to define love.

But to say that we can define and understand love is not a manifestation of presumptuousness or arrogance. Nor does it suggests that we know or will ever know, for that matter, all about love that can be known. A growing understanding of love is healthy. Love is vital for both the healthy individual and the healthy society. Based on this conviction, we have a personal and collective responsibility to understand love so that we may apply it more effectively to the human condition. Man's quest to know love is a stride toward Mutuality and represents his most serious endeavor to fathom and fashion a philosophy, or at least discover one, which can be called "toward a psychology of completion," and, indeed, catapult him in that direction. Without a philosophy rooted in love, man settles to live essentially on an animal level, rather than on a human or divine plane. But while living on the animal level, he is not likely to experience potential living other than, maybe, periodically or during "peak-out" moments of his existence. He seldom has a peak experience while living a robotized existence. As man's philosophy is, so goes man. It is not amiss to say man is a "philosophical being." Man's philosophy determines his world - the nature of his institutions, relationships, communications, fears, dreams, war and peace, meaning or meaninglessness and fulfillment or the lack of it.

On the experiential level love can be known and enjoyed. Even a child knows what love is on the experiential level. As a matter of fact, a child experiences everything as either an act of love or an act of "unlove." His intellect and reasoning do not attempt, as is true for adults, to interpret the acts, determine the motives, of those extending love or lovelessness. We all know, and long for love, love on that infantile level. Being confined to an infantile relationship (which is a state of innocence) and without understanding of love, we can only be recipients of love. In such state, we do not know how to love ourselves and others. And, appearances of love are manifestations of "I love you because I need you, or think I need you." If this capacity to give love is not developed, it will invariably lead to narcissism.

We all know and yearn for love. In its absence, we seek it. In our search for love, we may become frustrated and even destructive. One's pursuit of love continues throughout his lifetime, unless he is possessed by love. We all concur with the song writer who said, "What the world needs now is love." Without love nothing else seems to matter enough. Without it, there is an ever-present missing link. But with love, burdens are lifted, frustrated and broken lives are made whole again, wounded hearts are healed, faith triumphs over doubt and eternity becomes the eternal now - a present state of existence which at the same time transcends existence.

If we are to love effectively, we must understand that love is a science and an art. Understanding love does not only mean that the person who possesses love, or better yet, is possessed by love, can apply it effectively, but it means that love can be mass-marketed, - a most pressing world need in today's world where marketing has taken precedent over the quality of the product - thereby being possessed by and possessing, not just a few, but many, conceivably and entire society or human race.

History records the names of many who have shared their views on love. Listen to three of these voices:

Love is a wild wonder
And stars that sing,
Rocks that burst asunder
And mountains that
take wings."
    -Langston Hughes

What is love?
Ask him who lives,
What is life?
Ask him who adores,
What is God?
 -Percy Bysshe Shelly

Love means tearing down
the separateness and the
boundaries between your
heart feelings and another
person. It is a feeling of
understanding - of oneness.
  -Ken Keyes

The word love in the English language has been frequently misused or misunderstood. We often speak of people loving inanimate objects and non-human life forms. We sometimes say, "People love money, power, playing golf, cats, roses, and so on." Since God created everything good and gave man dominion over everything that He created, it appears that man can do no less than love all creation. However, unless man recognizes that love is fundamentally about spiritual growth and human evolution, he may discover that he possesses not love, but a form of pseudo-love, which in reality is either the disintegration of love or an escape from love. 

The Greeks popularized four words to express what we today designate as love. Their first word is "eros" which they understand to mean "romantic love." From this word we get erotic or eroticism.

Their second word is "storage." While its basic meaning is not clear from the Bible where it is used, maybe as little as two or three times, it appears to relate to "natural affection." Perhaps, it could be equated with a sense of mutual respect among comrades or fellow persons. It could even include the love for money, cats, and so forth.

The third word which the Greek people commonly used for love was "philos." This word was used to express friendship, brotherly love, or emotional affection, and in this later sense was kin to "eros."

The fourth, by far the most widely used word for love in the New Testament, in particular, is "agape." This word represents the relationship between a mother and her child or father and his child, or a similar relationship. Agape involves more than any other kind of love. It consists of a commitment to the one loved and is entirely free of reciprocity, as far as any requirement for it to be expressed goes. It is unconditional love. The statement, "I love you for no other reason than you are you," is one way of describing love "agape."

Since love is what love does, we have chosen here to give an operational definition of love. The value of operational definitions in behavioral sciences lies in the fact that they avoid the use of substantive terms to describe the process of behavior. To define "operationalism is to define it in terms of some kind of action, rather than by means of an inherent trait possessed by a person. Another way of stating this is: operationalism defines its concepts, not in terms of things, but in terms of processes and situations.

Love is a complex, yet basically a unified emotion. Love is empathy, responsiveness and caring expressed in the good we do. Why do good?" Despite the teachings and preachments which emphasize the natural depravity of man and his hostile environment, man was created good and is, by nature good, not evil. It would follow then that, it is only natural for man to do good based upon is nature. However, that is not the case. We are to do good because this is the only way we can be good to ourselves - to be on one's own side or one's own best friend.

Third, Creation is still in the making and the making of our individual souls is essentially  in the trust or hands of individuals who love. It is important to have love relationships if we are to feel loved. Love is essentially a relationship and we cannot be happy unless we are loved or feel that we are loved. In his study of self-actualized people Abraham Maslow found that his healthy clients were able to let go their defenses in their love relationships and be their real selves without fear or pretenses. He states:

        "One of the deepest satisfactions
coming from the healthy love relationship
reported by my subjects is that such a
relationship permits the greatest spontane-
ity, the greatest naturalness, the greatest
dropping of defenses and protection against
threat. In  such  a  relationship, it  is  not
necessary to be guarded, to conceal, to try
to impress, to feel tense, to watch one's words
or actions, to suppress or repress. My people
report that they can be themselves without
feeling that there are demands or expecta-
tions upon them; they can feel psychologi-
cally (as well as physically) naked and still
feel loved and wanted and secure.

Love is for friends. The person who loves is a friend. No other relationship, not parent-child, brother-brother, sister-sister or husband-wife can compare with friend-friend. Yet, each kind of relationship mentioned and other kinds of nurturing relationships can embrace or more correctly, be embrace by and coupled with the highest relationship form that exists, friend-friend. Even when that person being loved is not a friend to his lover, the lover can be a friend to him. Like love, friendship is unconditional. A loved one does not have to be befriended by the person loved; he only has to be a friend.

Being a friend means that first of all the person is a friend to himself. He esteems himself and others, but does not apologize for his feelings. But how to be a friend to self and others is the ever-present challenge of love. Here are five suggestions which can enable a person to be a friend.

1. Learn the art of listening. Listening is not simply hearing the spoken word. One may hear that which he does not listen to. Listening involves perceiving the feeling and sensing the meaning of the words expressed. In listening the intentionality of the speaker is empathy-perceived. To truly listen, a person must "let go" of his ego or defense posturing and be a receiver-empathizer. It is also important to listen to oneself attentively and honestly.

2. Learn the art of touching. touching is natural. We may observe non-human animals and other living creatures engaging in touchig as a part of their natural behavior. Before humans are socialized, taught not to touch, they too engage much like other animals in touching. Many people are much more likely to touch their cat or dog than their spouses or other human beings.

Touching is an effective means of communication. It can express what words cannot convey. It tenders feelings, engenders comfort and communicates tender love. It can be used to supplement other forms of communication and to express the hidden meanings of words. Allow yourself to ask to be touched by others and to touch others. Both are important. Become a confirmed toucher. Touching may also help in giving pleasure and in affecting healing.

3. Tell people you love them. Love is a powerful word and potent force. And while there are many ways to express love, a person really desires to hear another person say to him, "I love you." It is as if the ears were made to hear, "I love you." Hearing "I love you" feels like a coat that wears better every time you put it on. Tell people often that you love them. When possible touch them and look them in the eyes while letting them know you love them. "I love you" is a soothing melody that sounds good ringing not only in the ears, but in the hearts of those loved.

4. Give other people unlimited space. Unlimited space is a friendship gesture. Expectations and distrust often present us from granting others space to be who they are and who they are not - space to be themselves. People who distrust themselves generally distrust others. They are afraid to be themselves because they feel others will not like what they see, and that can be frightening. Openness to the unpredictableness of the other person, withholding judgment and having a willingness to refrain from criticizing, especially when it is a ploy to fuel ones ego, are ways we may take in creating unlimited space for others. In such climate of acceptance, people are encouraged to express their uniqueness and creativeness or, in a word, be themselves.

It is worth pointing out that giving others unlimited space does not mean that the space-giver is destructive to himself or that he support others in being destructive. Whenever a person supports another person in being destructive to  himself knowingly or unknowingly he contributes to his own destructiveness as well. By not condemning others or rationalizing our own behavior, we can lengthen for others the terrain which permits the greatest degree of freedom. It is these two defense mechanisms, condemnation and rationalization which limit awareness most and are major barriers to the expression of love.

5. Be a friend. As stated earlier, being a friend to others begins with being a friend to oneself. A simple test of self-friendship is: will you  do for yourself what you will do for a friend or someone you consider to be "special?" Are you willing to take yourself to an exclusive or elegant restaurant as you would your friend or use that special silverware for yourself when only you are having dinner? Can you celebrate life alone and feel that you are the honoree or celebrity? Ralph waldo Emerson said, "The only way to have a friend is to be one." Becoming interested in others, rather than attempting to get them interested in you is essential in the development and expression of friendship. Remember, a friend is one with whom you can dare to be yourself.

In addition to knowing how to be a friend, there are five major considerations a person needs to know about love:

1. Love is acquired. Love is learned, not hereditary, behavior. We do not "fall into" love or "catch" love as we catch the common cold or a fish. We learn to love. Erich Fromm has taken the position, and correctly so, that love is an art. He could have added that it is a science as well. Learning an art Fromm maintains, consists of a process which involves mastery of the theory and mastery of the practice and something more. He declares:

But, aside from learning, the theory and
practice, there is a third factor necessary to
become a master of any art - the mastery of
the art must become a matter of ultimate
concern: there must be nothing else in the
world more important than the art.

It is obvious from this observation that the reason people do not learn to love in our culture is because in spite of a craving for love, almost every thing else is considered to be of greater importance than love: success, money, fashion, etc. These kinds of values and attitudes are taught in the home. Conceivably if parents gave more attention to loving, their children would learn to love. Kahlil Gibran speaking of parents and children relations says:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters
of Life 's longing for itself. ...
You may give them your love but not
your thoughts.

Learning to love, like learning other values or disvalues, for that matter, usually begins at a very early age. As for the child he perceives, interprets and internalizes every action of his parent (or surrogate parent) he experiences as an "act of love" or an "act of unlove." He does not go through a rational or logical process, as is often the case with adults. He simply experiences what happens and is governed instinctively by his feelings. And, while the child himself is not naturally a lover, (despite adults' need to believe otherwise in order to make-up for their own deficit of love), but rather a taker, he has a need for love and is capable of recognizing it and deriving benefits from it. A child responds positively to love's presence and negatively to its absence.

Taking this scenario a step further, it follows that society can and should do more than recognize love. Society should teach love. We need to establish schools that are designed to teach love and assist people in the science and art of applying living-love to everyday living. In this regard, our most difficult assignment will be that of securing teachers who qualify to teach love. While love teachers are in short supply, there is a sufficient number of them to launch a successful love-teacher school program, one that will produce love teachers in process. Within a few years, love schools could begin to operate throughout America and spread to other parts of the world. It is worth adding that initially love teachers are likely to be found where least expected, almost exclusively outside of institutions of higher learning which specialize in teaching people to be adjusted and phony.

Love is selfish. Healthy selfishness is not narcissism or egocentricity. It is a person's recognition of the supremacy of "I-ness" i.e., his own "I-ness." This point is illustrated in the poem, "Self-Supreme."

I am number one, the most
   significant person in and
   center of my world;
I am the supreme being of both
   my experience and my existence.
Being self-supreme I do not put
   anything or make anyone more
   important than I am.
I am my own best friend.
I do not demand or desire that
   anyone else agree with me that
I am supreme.
What another person thinks about
   me is none of my business;
   that's his business.
But what I think about me is my
priority business.
When in my presence you will be
   aware that I know that I am
   supreme in my world.
You will hear me say again and
   again, "I am supreme."
But you should also know, you,
can be supreme in your world,
if you choose.

People who are instructed to love others may seldom, if ever, be taught to love themselves. Perhaps it is taken for granted that they will love themselves, but the evidence does not support this pretext. Obviously, this neglect accounts, in part, for the widespread lovelessness in our society. Fromm has addressed this matter in stating:

"...the logical fallacy is the notion"
that love for others and love for oneself are
mutually exclusive should be stressed. If it
is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human
being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice -
to love myself, since I am a human being
too."

Mister Eckhart has eloquently summed up the idea of self love in this manner:

If you love yourself, you love everybody
else as you do yourself. As long as you
love another person less than you love
your-self, you will not really succeed in
loving yourself, you will love them as
one person and that person is both God
and man. Thus he is a great and
righteous person who, loving himself,
loves all others equally.

3. Love is unpossessive. No one has stated this profound truth more simply and direct than Kahlil Gibran, who said, "Love possesses not nor will it be possessed." To possess or be possessed has dire consequences. Possessiveness constitutes an I-It relationship which is in paraphrase: I am a person; it  (the other person) is a thing. It constitutes a slave-master relationship. This kind of egocentric behavior is dehumanizing.

Envy and jealousy are frequent companions of possessiveness. In a culture, like ours, where ownership is extolled and common accessibility - even sharing - is minimized, even discouraged, in many instances, it is easy to understand the reason why many people are obsessed with a possessiveness complex. Other contributing factors to this imposing, oftentimes dramatic, selfishness include class designation, competition and the felt need (a blatant aberration or character) to control, even when this means controlling another human being while the would-be-controller is, indeed, out-of-control - undisciplined and unprincipled.

To be unpossessive means to accept the uniqueness and individuality of the loved one, to be glad for him and supportive of him being just himself. It means permitting the person loved to choose for himself, which includes choosing the manner he will relate to you. When we accept others as our equals, it is impossible for us to possess them. In loving others, we celebrate with them their freedom...to be themselves and we embrace their friendship.

4. Love is violent. By this we mean "altruistic violence," but, nevertheless, we mean violence in the full sense of the meaning of the term. It has been said that "there is an element of violence in all love and that God is the most violent of them all." There seems to be little need to debate this point. It is obvious form the Scriptures and from human experience, man's encounter with his environment which appears at times to be hostile and violent, that the God whom John refers to when he says, "God is love," is the same God who Paul speaks of when he says "Vengeance mine; I will repay, says the Lord."

Rollo May, in pointing out that apathy, rather than hate, is the opposie of love, has provided us with some insight into, as well as a rationale for, violence that is embodied in love. This is not to infer that violence is love or that love and hate are one and the same. However, they are two sides of the same coin. Traditionally, violence has been linked to hate, and to that degree, it is viewed as non-love. But to accept that view is to deny that love is responsible and violent, as well.

This writer was a founder and the original secretary of the Montgomery Improvement  Association which provided leadership for the Montgomery Bus boycott in the nineteen  fifties. He recalls that a major reason he broke with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., president of that Association, had to do with whether or not violence should be employed in certain situations. The question he asked Dr. King is: "What would you do if you saw an attacker brutally beating your mother?" Dr. king answered "As a resister of violence, I could not be persuaded to act violently under any condition." This response is diametrically opposed to the principle of responsibility which is also the core principle of "Mutuality" {philosophy}. For that matter, it is equally opposed to common sense. The discipline Martin Luther King, Jr., manifested, in this regard is not the discipline that emanates from mature love. Love is the only healthy way to go and the way of love does not only permit but encourages, the perpetuation and enhancement of life.

The very nature of love more than suggests that the employment of altruistic violence is an act of love. For the loving person every human being is a loved one. He loves others as he loves himself. This further indicates that a person may actually be violent towards himself. This happens when he invites suffering to himself that could have been avoided, for a good or healthy reason. Love promotes health.

Altruism, as defined by this writer, implies that the good or welfare of the other person is put on even par with the good of the person doing the encountering. A mother may punish her child out of the same depth of compassion as that she rewards him and a person may deliberate render ineffective a would-be assassin out of his own love, for himself and/or others. No one would dare say that the man who, having not provoked the would-be murderer who shot him three times, responded by firing three shots which killed the attempting-murderer of his life, is anything other than a man expressing and acting out of love. Speaking to this point, in an earlier writing, the author states:

This approach allows the individual to take
direct action against an adversary in the
interest of another person's good, his own
good, or the adversary's good, and to return
or initiate "altruistic violence" when such
action will produce the greatest good.

Love can never make a mockery or a lie out of justice. Indeed, it is through love that justice can be actuated. Often love is compelled to confront justice. At such time, as in other encounters, it never surrenders, equivocates or ignores. Love is on the side of health, not destructiveness. When love and justice meet love prevails. Sometimes love extends mercy, but even then justice is not compromised. Being above man's law, and subscribing to a higher law, love dictates and directs its own course. Because it is both absolute and ultimate, love has no supreme court to which it may appeal. Indeed, "love is sufficient unto itself." To reiterate, when violence is the lovely thing to do love is violent. It is precisely because love is absolute and ultimate, in essence, that it applies and can be applied to every situation with positive result.

Although without a doubt, love is violent, the most significant thing to remember in the context of livingness that it is not violence or nonviolence, but responsibleness which characterizes and defines the response or expression of love in each situation. For in every situation, love does the responsible thing. Likewise, the person who loves takes responsible action in each situation, to the degree his awareness permits. Primarily, he chooses to be responsible, not to be violent or to be nonviolent. Nor does he choose to  be popular, expedient or to exploit another human being.

5. Love is self-fulfilling. Happiness is a by-product. It results from the consciousness of feeling fulfilled. Fulfillment is rooted in love and love is perhaps the clearest manifestation of God. In love, as with God, there is no lack. Usually events and experiences take on different meanings in the  presence of love. Lack, including poverty, which can be a curse in the absence of love, can be a blessing when love exists. This is not to suggest that a person should desire poverty but it does indicate that one may experience poverty and yet not be poverty-stricken.

While love offers abundance, its primary response is to need, not desire or want. Needs are few, but wants can be unlimited and are seldom entirely satisfied. Often wants satisfied are counter-productive to the recipient. Love cannot be a party to gluttony, exploitation and hoarding. Neither is it impressed with a "Horatio Alger rags to riches story." ...

Love is self-fulfilling in the sense and to the degree that  it enables a person to (a) see himself acceptable, appreciated, and capable; (b) have a high degree of self-acceptance, i.e., acceptance of himself as he is now: (c) have a feeling of belongingness with others; (d) have valuable information, knowledge, and goodwill, (e) freely share with others, demanding or asking for nothing, and yet finding enjoyment and (f) be open to experience the here-and-now as the new experience that it is. ...

St. John was known as Jesus' "beloved disciple." When Jesus was dying on th cross, He said to him, "Behold my mother." This can only indicate that St. John had to know something about love. Jesus wanted him to befriend and take care of his mother. This is what St John had to say:

We know what love is from the fact that
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. We,
too, ought to lay down our lives for our
brothers. ...Beloved, let us love one another,
because love takes its origin in God, and
everyone that loves is a child of God and
knows God. He who has no love does not
know God, because God is love. ...No one
has ever seen God, yet if we love one
another, God abides in us and our love
for him reaches perfection.

There is a story told about the Evangelist St. John, who wrote: "God is love. ..., If any man says that he loves God whom he has not seen but hates his brother who he has seen, he is a liar." Tough language to be sure. It is about this John that the story is told that, in the twilight of his long life, he would sit for hours with his younger disciples who, as it were, sat at his feet in quest of increased enlightenment. One day, according to the well-established tradition, one of his disciples protested: "John, you always talk about love, about God's love for us and about our love for each other. Please tell us about something else besides love?" The disciple who, while still a youth, had laid his head over the heart of Jesus and later the mother of our Lord, is said to have replied "because there is nothing else, just love... love... love." Then he added, "Give all to love. God is love."

No more fitting comment to end this discussion on love can be made than the last seven words of the last two sentences above, "Give all to love. God is love."

(Taken from "Religion Par Excellence: Actualization of the Seven Storey Nature of Man" by Uriah J. Fields. pp 90-112.) 

Copyright 1991 and 2014 by Uriah J. Fields

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