But today I want to reflect on all of the many faces of love that we can see in the relationships around us. I watched this interesting show on Amazon Prime called Modern Love that is based on the New York Times popular newspaper column by the same name. It consists of an anthology of episodes based on a variety of expressions of love in all of its complicated and confusing possibilities. For instance the first episode is about the special relationship between the big city doormen and the young single woman far from family that live in their buildings. Often these older doormen take special care of the young ladies, serving as father figures. A sweet love and care for others that has nothing to do with sexual attraction.

One episode explores the challenge of dealing with being bi-polar and trying to date. You never know who is going to show up at the door and the challenge of finding someone that can care for and love someone in that difficult place. A friendship with a co-worker ends up being the love that is needed to seek the stabilizing help for this person. By the way, these episodes are based on columns which are all based on actual people’s stories.

There is the challenge of understanding love in a marriage under stress where two people have drifted apart. An there’s the love that happens in the senior years between Septa and Octogenarians. You get the point. Some of the expressions of love the columnist wrote about are uncomfortable and complicated like the episode about the young woman who sees the older man in her work place as a father figure that she never had in her own life. While the English language only has one word for love, there are 8 words for love in the Greek language. Modern Love reminded me of these various expressions.

Eros (romantic, passionate love)

The first kind of love is Eros, named after the Greek God of fertility. Eros is passion, lust and pleasure. The ancient Greeks considered Eros to be dangerous and frightening as it involves a “loss of control” through the primal impulse to procreate. Eros is an intense form of love that arouses romantic and sexual feelings.

Philia (affectionate love)

The second type of love is Philia, or friendship. Plato felt that physical attraction was not a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction.”

Agape (selfless, universal love)

The third is Agape, selfless universal love, such as the love for strangers, nature, or God. This love is unconditional, bigger than ourselves, a boundless compassion and an infinite empathy that you extended to everyone, whether they are family members or distant strangers.

Storge (familiar love)

Storge is a natural form of affection experienced between family members. This protective, kinship-based love is common between parents and their children, and children for their parents. Storge can also describe a sense of patriotism toward a country or allegiance to the same team.

Mania (obsessive love)

When love turns to obsession, it becomes mania. Stalking behaviors, co-dependency, extreme jealousy, and violence are all symptoms of Mania.

Ludus (playful love)

The Ancient Greeks thought of ludus as a playful form of love. It describes the situation of having a crush and acting on it, or the affection between young lovers.

Pragma (enduring love)

Pragma is a love built on commitment, understanding and long-term best interests. It is a love that has aged, matured and about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, also showing patience and tolerance.

Philautia (self love)

The Greeks understood that in order to care for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves. As Aristotle said, “All friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man’s feelings for himself.”
-Greek City Times

I guess today on Valentine’s Day I am struck by how often we talk about loving others in the life of the Christian Church and how on Valentine’s Day we should be celebrating more than just our romantic, “eros” loving relationships. My hunch is that maybe some of our non-romantic loving relationships are what help sustain us most during the difficult times of life. The love we have for our family and for our friends are necessary forms of support day in and day out. Of course there is the Love that God showers upon us filled with grace and blessing. The mature love of a marriage that has survived the decades can teach us more about how God loves us day in and day out than any Romantic Comedy or grand gesture of passion or romance.

Take a moment today and tell someone that you are not in a romantic relationship with that you love them. Recognize the many faceted forms of love in your own life. And then know that those are examples of the gift God has given you in your life and what God longs for you to nurture and sustain. Because God knows how necessary this gift of love is for us to thrive as children of God.

Hey brothers and sisters in Christ – I love you.

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth

Yesterday afternoon I was reflecting about Martin Luther King, Jr. on the eve of the day which honors him with a national holiday. Simultaneously some friends and I went to see the movie Just Mercy about Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard trained lawyer who comes to Alabama to assist inmates on death row get a fair hearing. This particular movie focuses on his work with innocent inmate Walter McMillan who he got released in 1993 after 5 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

Yesterday afternoon I was reflecting about Martin Luther King, Jr. on the eve of the day which honors him with a national holiday. Simultaneously some friends and I went to see the movie Just Mercy about Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard trained lawyer who comes to Alabama to assist inmates on death row get a fair hearing. This particular movie focuses on his work with innocent inmate Walter McMillan who he got released in 1993 after 5 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.It was a well told story and if you haven’t seen the movie, you should. What struck me most of all as incident after incident of racial injustice and pure morally indecent behavior is that this all took place between 1987 and 1993. I was in college. This wasn’t Civil Rights era back in the 50’s and 60’s. An unfortunate reminder to me in my white lens world of how far we haven’t come with race relations as I might have assumed in my lifetime.

This reminded me of a difficult but really significant conversation with a friend I had a few weeks ago. It just seems that racial tension has been building of late and she was helping me understand things from a person of color’s perspective. It was difficult conversation but immensely helpful. No matter what shade our skin is, we need help seeing things from another person’s perspective when it comes to how we view and experience life. Sadly, that is because we still live in a country where people are treated differently based on so many factors including the color of their skin. And that inconsistency can in return lead to all kinds of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of people’s actions and intentions. Race relations remains a complicated issue in 2020.

This brings me back to where I started, with Martin Luther King, Jr. As I ponder all of these points for consideration, I marvel at all that MLK was able to accomplish in such a few young years. Here are some things I learned about him in doing just a little bit of research.

• Martin Luther King Sr. changed his name from Michael to Martin in honor of the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. His son chose to do the same. [This link offers some comparisons between the two that are interesting to note.]
• He was wicked smart and skipped both 9th and 11th grades starting college at age 15. He had earned a Master of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and then his doctorate from Boston College by the age of 25.
• King quickly became the face and voice to the civil rights movement as his youthful energy and skillful rhetoric began to resonate and agitate across the country.
• Integral in leading to the legal ending of segregation and advocating for equal voting rights in the US he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at the age of 34.
• The creation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference would then combine Christian moral authority with the legal and social action of the civil rights movement so that the lens of Christian teaching could be applied time and again to the injustices people of color were experiencing.
• He was assassinated before turning 40 years old.

It just strikes me that MLK accomplished so much in such a short period of time that has gone on to impact so many others. And I am still moved by his way with words that reflects the struggle of human nature and an appeal to our better selves.

But I will actually close with part of a quote from Bryan Stevenson, the lawyer advocating for justice on death row. He startlingly names a common denominator between an African American on death row and, well, me when he says,

“…we all need mercy, we all need justice, and-perhaps-we all need some measure of unmerited grace.”

“• Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

I agree. Will you take a minute, or longer, today and reflect on this truth that binds all people together, no matter their background, life circumstances and all of the categories that make us different from one another? And if, in any way you can offer another mercy, justice or unmerited grace, do not hesitate to do so. Because that choice will always move the needle towards God’s Kingdom coming and God’s will being done. Every time.

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth