![]() ![]() ![]() Nevertheless, we have this endless yearning. What it might be after the death of the body, we don’t know. Still: There is this endless, “infinite” quality that exists in each human person. without end.Įven when the body ceases to exist even when there doesn’t appear to be a separate “soul” in us humans (Where was my beloved Andie’s “soul” when she slowly disintegrated from Alzheimers before my eyes for seventeen years!? I don’t know Ich Weiss es nicht Je ne se pas Io non so…). We reach out endlessly in every direction-wider, wider, deeper, deeper…. All those different ways are endless because Persons are made “In the Image of God” (Gen 1:27), who is endless.Įven if a person doesn’t believe that “God” exists (historically, we humans have had such wildly contradictory understandings of “god” that it is understandable that many find the idea of “God” unacceptably confused), there is in us humans an “endless” quality. I want to become “one” with you in endless ways…īecause you and I are “persons,” my love for you means that I want to be “one” with you in the endless ways that only persons can be one with each other. So, to my Beloved: I perceive you as a “good” friend, and thus, I want to talk with you, share my joys and sorrows with you…. I want to “become one” with George, not by “eating him,” or by sitting quietly with my eyes closed and listening to him endlessly I want to “be one” with him by talking together with him, sharing his joys and sorrows, helping him when he is in need…. I don’t want to “eat” Mozart, but I want to “become one” with him by “listening” to his music. Thus, I want to become one with ice cream by eating it. Love fundamentally means, “ We want to become ‘ one’ with what we perceive as ‘ good.’” If George does that a lot, we say he is a “very good friend.”….or not such a good friend….Īgain, when we use the word “good” we mean that this “thing”-ice cream, Mozart, George…is doing what we understand ice cream, Mozart, friend should do. When I say that George is a “good” friend, we understand that a friend is a person who “we can depend on,” “will sympathize with us when we are sad.”…. Because different persons might have similar, or very different, ideas about what music should do, we have differing judgments as to whether Mozart’s music is “good” or “not.”…. To the extent it does those, and/or things, we say that it is “good,” “not so good,” “bad.”…. The same is true of music: We think that this sound should “calm our feelings,” or “arouse our feelings,” or “be pleasing to hear,” or…. To the extent that this ice cream does what I/you think ice cream should do, I/you say that it is “good,” “very good,” “not so good,” “bad.”…. Of course, different people might have different understandings of what ice cream should be like: It should be very soft, or, medium soft, or, almost hard, or, very sweet, or, slightly sweet…. Thus, we think that ice cream should be, for example, sweet, cool, soft…., and to the extent the ice cream we are eating does those things, we think/say that it is “good,” or “not good,” or “very good”…. ![]() I think we have in our minds: An idea of what something should do, and when it does that, we say that it is “good.” That then raises the question: What do we mean by the word “ good” ? Whenever we perceive the “good” we want to become one, united, with it. I understand it to mean: “I wish to become one with” Mozart, ice cream, George…. We all understand when someone makes those statements. But what does “love” mean in those very different statements? That was a “good” performance of Mozart This will be longish, and in the beginning, mostly “dry,” but “feeling” will creep in gradually.įirst, at the most fundamental level: “What do we mean when we use the word ‘good’”? You ask, “What do I think it means?” Let me take your question seriously and try to lay out my understanding as clearly as I can. Limitless words have been spoken and written to try to grasp the meaning of that word, and the reality it tries to name. O Theophila*, you ask about the meaning of love. ![]()
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