Some people see today as the day before Valentine's Day...
I see it as Friday the 13th!
Just kidding. I'm not that depressing.
In the Valentine's spirit, here's a link to a thought-provoking article on the topic of romantic love, and the other types of love as well, based off the theology of one of Tolkien's and CS Lewis' contemporaries at Oxford, Charles Williams. Some good quotes from the article:
For Williams, then, the romantic vision was not confused, but illuminated. The lover sees through the beloved's flaws to the image of God. The lover is not blind to pigeon toes and ill manners but, caught up in love, discerns the true creature, the one who, when perfected in heaven, "you would be strongly tempted to worship." It is this truest and deepest self of the person—the person as created and potentially redeemed by God—that Williams called that person's "eternal identity."
Romantic love (and friendship to a lesser degree) not only recognizes the vastly appealing eternal identity in a man or woman, then, but can draw them toward achieving that glory.
Heart room is what we need so as to dare to love as indiscriminately as Jesus did. The risk of loving is real and terrible. As Capon says, "What is love if it is not the indulgence of the ultimate risk of giving one's self to another over whom we have no control?" We may be rejected. We may be manipulated, cheated, or used. Still, God commands us to love, to love even our enemies, who are indeed likely to reject and use us in return.
Lived in light of our faith, romantic love can help us to love, to love romantically but also with agape love. It can teach us humility and the reality of our dependence on God and others. It can show us, in a special way, the beauty of God—seen through his image in a person he had made. It provides us an arena for sacrifice and charity; it can draw us toward being better than we are or could be on our own. It reminds us of the wonder of gifts, and so that gift of all gifts, grace.
Personal update post to come.
I see it as Friday the 13th!
Just kidding. I'm not that depressing.
In the Valentine's spirit, here's a link to a thought-provoking article on the topic of romantic love, and the other types of love as well, based off the theology of one of Tolkien's and CS Lewis' contemporaries at Oxford, Charles Williams. Some good quotes from the article:
For Williams, then, the romantic vision was not confused, but illuminated. The lover sees through the beloved's flaws to the image of God. The lover is not blind to pigeon toes and ill manners but, caught up in love, discerns the true creature, the one who, when perfected in heaven, "you would be strongly tempted to worship." It is this truest and deepest self of the person—the person as created and potentially redeemed by God—that Williams called that person's "eternal identity."
Romantic love (and friendship to a lesser degree) not only recognizes the vastly appealing eternal identity in a man or woman, then, but can draw them toward achieving that glory.
Heart room is what we need so as to dare to love as indiscriminately as Jesus did. The risk of loving is real and terrible. As Capon says, "What is love if it is not the indulgence of the ultimate risk of giving one's self to another over whom we have no control?" We may be rejected. We may be manipulated, cheated, or used. Still, God commands us to love, to love even our enemies, who are indeed likely to reject and use us in return.
Lived in light of our faith, romantic love can help us to love, to love romantically but also with agape love. It can teach us humility and the reality of our dependence on God and others. It can show us, in a special way, the beauty of God—seen through his image in a person he had made. It provides us an arena for sacrifice and charity; it can draw us toward being better than we are or could be on our own. It reminds us of the wonder of gifts, and so that gift of all gifts, grace.
Personal update post to come.
posted by Bob at
4:04 PM
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