verbage

Lately I've been thinking a lot about love. ok that's not anything new. but my thoughts of late are fairly specifically focusing on love as an action.

I think this comes from the idea of love as a choice, a concept that's thrown around a lot but not always fleshed out. Everyone knows that love is more than just a feeling, right? Because people who are married for a long time don't necessarily feel love the way they used to feel love. You have to choose to love the person to whom you are committed. What does it mean to choose to love? It means action. You continue to give of yourself to the other person. You continue to put aside your individualism for the better of your community.

For me, love is sacrifice. If I love someone, then I am willing to sacrifice for them. I put their needs first. I buy them things they need/want, I spend time with just them, I help them with whatever they need. What is important is how I love. I ask myself in all my relationships, how can I best love this person right now? Let me tell you, if I truly think of the needs of the other person, how I should be loving them is not always how I want to be loving them.

so it comes down to this. I see love as a verb, not a noun. God loves us with an active love. God is love, and God is creator, redeemer, etc, none of which are passive. How God loves us reveals God's true nature to us. We know God through God's loving acts. Por ejemplo the Eucharist. A loving sacrifice. A total action, every mass God comes down and bam transubstantiation. So if God's love is active, how could our love be inactive? This perhaps goes into the whole "they'll know we are Christians by our love" thing. If we just sit around feeling love for people, is that truly love? I think not. The love that does not act is an empty love.

I don't have love. I do love. I love.