I hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day this past week or a tolerable Singles Awareness Day. I’m going to talk today about love you will experience throughout your life. There are many types of love and the forms love takes change over time.
When you start out, the first form of love you encounter is what the Greeks called storge. It’s an instinctual form of love sometimes referred to as need love. As a child, especially a young child, you bond to your parents because you are completely dependent on them. As a parent there is a similar drive. You feel affection and a need to care for things that are small and cute and warm. This may be meant for babies but there is a sort of halo effect that includes other things with similar characteristics like small animals–-think puppies and kittens. If it weren’t for this drive we might not give babies the care they need. They are annoying and loud and messy. We still love them.
We have a hard time with awareness and our families. You can’t see flaws in them, especially as a child. You assume everything about them is normal. Everything about them is figuratively and literally familiar, so it seems expected. If you don’t process their flaws, failings, and differences, then you will find yourself choosing people to be around you who replicate your family of origin. Become your own person. Differentiating is hard, but worthwhile work. Your growth will lead to your family’s growth.
The next type of love you are likely to encounter is philia. It is sometimes referred to as brotherly love, but tends to denote friendship. Philia is special because it is a love between equals. Your first friends may come around the same time as you learn to walk, but your understanding and the depth of this kind of love will grow throughout your lifetime. Value your friends and care for your relationships. Don’t take them for granted.
I like to say that my first girlfriend was in second grade, but I am not sure that I experienced that sort of love so young. This type of love is called Eros. While some believe it starts at an early age, many expect this sort of love would be first experienced around adolescence, but. My first real crush happened around junior high. I left roses at her house, but I didn’t really know her beyond class at school.
Have you ever felt electricity when you touched someone? I felt that when my wife brushed my hand before we were even dating. Have you ever had someone draw in all of your attention? You have experienced this type of love. I had a girlfriend with whom I talked every day on the phone and we even slept with Skype on so we could hear each other breathe at night. While erotic connotes sexuality, the way you desire someone can be much broader. You may want to simply be around them all of the time. Romantic love can drive you to great deeds. I have found this type of love drives me to be a better person. A smart girl made me want to be smarter. A good girl made me want to be kinder. My wife sees the best in me and I want to live up to it.
You may first be aware of Eros through infatuation or limerence. These all-consuming sensations can be particularly intense. At this stage, you may have a hard time thinking of anything else. You will have a hard time even imagining that the object of your desire has any flaws. My first crush was perfect in my eyes.
Limerence is similar but can be more dysfunctional and one-sided than ordinary infatuation.
I had my first real romantic love relationship in my last couple of years as a teenager. We spent lots of time together. I was physically and emotionally attracted to her. We thought about a future together, but in the end I didn’t fit her image of what she wanted in a partner. She is one of the few people from high school I kept in contact with in the years that followed.
Romantic love is interesting in that as it builds and deepens over time it teams up with other sorts of love. Your romantic partner can also be your friend bringing in philia to the relationship.
My relationship with my wife began as philia, friendship love. She knew me and still loved me. We were equals, working and praying together. Our romantic love that grew was strengthened by our friendship bond.
Over time, our relationship grew not by avoiding arguments and disagreements, but by growing through them. A relationship where you could not see any flaws in the other can develop into a love where you know and accept the other with all their flaws. This brings us to our next sort of love.
Agape is a selfless, unconditional love. Agape is a Godly sort of love. The Latin word for this sort of love is caritas which is the root of the English word charity. This is the sort of love Leigh talked about last week in relation to caring for the people around us and seeking justice. This sort of love can be a sort of generalized love for all of humanity, but it can also be specific to individuals. Leigh and I worked against the death penalty. This was not out of friendship nor romance with those who were on death row. Instead we loved them beyond any specific qualities. This is the sort of love which we are exhorted to in Leviticus and Exodus, when we are called to not oppress nor mistreat the foreigner in our land. We would do well to remember this in a time of demonizing immigrants. We are also called to care for the widows and the orphans. These specific commands point to a more general call to love those on the margins and protect the vulnerable.
Agape love can have a complete understanding of the other and selflessness that sets this kind of love apart from the other types of love. As a babysitter, a camp counselor, and a Registered Behavior Technician, I loved the kids I worked with. I did not need them, though they needed me. This sort of love brought together their connection to me from a sort of indifference to a sort of storge or need love with my unconditional love for them. They did not have to do anything and yet they could do anything and I would still love them.
The goal with love is multidimensional. Your love may be grounded in need or desire, but over time you can build in care for the other. Love can change forms and yet remain.
Our parents can become our peers as we reach maturity. Philia enters our relationship. As they reach old age, we may find they are the ones dependent on us. Storge reverses course and they love us out of need.
My relationship with my son has grown as he ages. I have always loved him in a way that takes in his flaws even when they were trying to me. He has loved me with a love born of need. These days I am proud to call him my friend.
Mature love allows you to see the other including not just their virtues but their flaws and still love them. While you should not let yourself be taken advantage of, you may find that there are important relationships in your life where you give more than you get and that can be OK.
God is love. We can find God in our love for others and in their love for us. Like Jean Valjean said in Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Looking through the eyes of love lets us see as God sees.
Love bonds us and the world together. Evil, on the other hand, sows hatred and division. The reason is not just that it disconnects us from one another, but that it makes it harder for us to connect with God. Divided people are easier to defeat. We are weaker when we cannot see the community around us. Connect with other people.
Each positive bond with another person also anchors and grounds us. Romantic love can be especially powerful in this way. With one person who truly knows us and believes in us we can weather all sorts of storms.
Build friendships leaning into the power of philia. Friendships make us less vulnerable to manipulation. Love, especially between people who are different strengthens us as a society. Love across boundaries.
God is the force that connects us. Wherever there is love there is God. God connects us to one another and to God. Lean into love.
Queries:
- How has love mattered for you?
- How can you let your love make a difference in the world?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence
https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/love/understanding-the-8-different-types-of-love
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