From the Four Loves: Need-Love
Divine Love is Gift-Love. It is the love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family which he will die without seeing or sharing; Need-Love, on the other hand, is one which sends a lonely and freightened child into his mother's arms.
The human love as we know it is Need-Love, or the craving for love. We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them to know anything, even ourselves.
Make no mistake. Need-Love is not selfishness. Need-Love can be wrongly and selfishly indulged, but in real life no one calls a child selfish for seeking affection from his mother, nor an adult who seeks his fellow "for company." The absence of Need-Love, on the other hand, can be seen as a symptom of a severe condition. Just as a man lacking in appetite for days may be suffering from medical condition, a man who refuses to acknowledge that he needs others may also be suffering from a different kind of illness.
Need-Love is not only essential but is also the main ingredient of a healthy spiritual life. The awareness that our whole being is naturally one vast need; incomplete, prepatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him to untie things that are knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.
Need-Love is delicate and fragile. The same Need-Love that can bring us closer to God may also be the Demons that destroy us. The voice of Need-Love may immitate the sound of God and instruct us to not count the costs; it tells us to give total commitment for "love's sake" regardless of everything else.
It all starts innocently, in the form of friendship, erotic love, family love, or even love for country. Then we start to mistake Like for Same. We see our Need-Love as equal to that of Gift-Love, then we start to give our human loves the same unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then these human loves become our gods; then they become demons; then they will destroy us, destroy themselves, and may even turn into hatred.
Need-Loves are main ingredients for a healthy spiritual life, but they are not meant to be our gods. Human loves may be divine images of Divine Love, no less, but also no more; they are not divine loves.
The human love as we know it is Need-Love, or the craving for love. We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them to know anything, even ourselves.
Make no mistake. Need-Love is not selfishness. Need-Love can be wrongly and selfishly indulged, but in real life no one calls a child selfish for seeking affection from his mother, nor an adult who seeks his fellow "for company." The absence of Need-Love, on the other hand, can be seen as a symptom of a severe condition. Just as a man lacking in appetite for days may be suffering from medical condition, a man who refuses to acknowledge that he needs others may also be suffering from a different kind of illness.
Need-Love is not only essential but is also the main ingredient of a healthy spiritual life. The awareness that our whole being is naturally one vast need; incomplete, prepatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him to untie things that are knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.
Need-Love is delicate and fragile. The same Need-Love that can bring us closer to God may also be the Demons that destroy us. The voice of Need-Love may immitate the sound of God and instruct us to not count the costs; it tells us to give total commitment for "love's sake" regardless of everything else.
It all starts innocently, in the form of friendship, erotic love, family love, or even love for country. Then we start to mistake Like for Same. We see our Need-Love as equal to that of Gift-Love, then we start to give our human loves the same unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then these human loves become our gods; then they become demons; then they will destroy us, destroy themselves, and may even turn into hatred.
Need-Loves are main ingredients for a healthy spiritual life, but they are not meant to be our gods. Human loves may be divine images of Divine Love, no less, but also no more; they are not divine loves.
posted by JPG at
20:18
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