I had made a bulliten on myspace over the summer about the topic of love, but I can not seem to find it. If I do I will edit this post.
This is an addition to that though. I was meditating on what exactly love is and in the summer I had decided it was primarily about sacrifice and I would like to add that its a sacrifice, not because we will do actions for the one(s) we love, rather it is a sacrifice because we willingly open our hearts and make ourselves vunerable to the ones we love. Its a risky situation. The more one is willingly to place themselves in that risk, the more they care about the other. This applies to all love, romantic, platonic, and divine love. Christ is the definition of Love in that he opened Himself up to us so much that he was willingly to suffer the ultimate rejection just to better us. Likewise we are willingly to suffer rejection, whether from a romantic interest, or a friend when we make ourselves vunerable to them. We have no need of course to fear rejection from God, but even with God we can feel hurt from our love because often times God does not always give us easy choices, or easy situations in life. By opening to God, we make ourselves more vunerable to these "dry" times or "Crosses" that we must bear in life, but ultimately we know that God always loves us and wills nothing but the best for us.
Blessed Constantine XI
Mar Isaac of Syria
St. Gregory Palamas
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"You know, I ususally do not post these sorts of things, bulletins that is. I felt the strange urge to post one with just some random thoughts I suppose. I do not know how many people will actually read this but oh well. I didn't mean for this to be very religious, but it appears that is where my mind is taking it. I want whoever is reading this to ask themselves what they think love is. Then i want you to think about what it means to sacrifice. Are not those two so inter connected that its difficult even to separate them? Can one really have true love without sacrifice? This is something we all have to ask ourselves? Is our obession with pleasure really what love is all about? Is love a way to make us feel pleasure? No , love is about how we can help others to be happy, sometimes we may feel good about doing that, other times we won't. It does not matter though because by our sacrifice the people we love become better and that is what love is and the people we love , if they love us back, will do the same for us and that is why love is the highest vocation for everyone. In our desire to love and to be loved though, we go astray and lose sight of what love really is. Whether its uselss stuff that we never really need, or whether its sex for just the pleasure of it, or whether its any other variety of things that we desire that we do not really sacrifice to get. Those all are not love. The Bible says God is love, and I will tell you why God is love. God is love because He took on the form of a slave, wait you say "he was a carpenters son" you reply. NO without God we are all slaves to Sin and death , so He became a slave. He suffered the pains of life that we go through every day in one of the poorest regions of the Roman Empire. He suffered hardships and temptations, and then finally He was crucified by His own creations in order to give to us a great happiness , in order to make us better! God became man, so man could become gods is what the Fathers say. And by that they mean Christ came down in order that our nature may become diefied , perfected and placed in a state beyond even waht we were first created! The syrian fathers tell us that even if we did not fall in the garden, Christ still would have came to bring us even closer to Him. God only desires that mankind be with Him becuase He loves us, and He only asks that we love Him in return. " - this is the original thought on the subject. Part 1, if you will.
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