Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Love That is Not Shadowboxing (John Robert Howell)
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and best;
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
These lines, which come near the end of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's marvelous poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", undoubtedly state a major theme of the poem and a theme well worth pursuing in our lives.
It is imperative, however, that our sense of love rises above Peter's at that luminous morning meal on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias when the risen Jesus asks Peter if he loves (agape) him. Peter's more limited view of love answers "yes, Lord, you know I love (philos) you". Responding to Jesus' exact repetition of the question, Peter replies the same. When Jesus questions Peter the hauntingly significant third time, he uses Peter's own word for love (philos), "are you really my friend?" and almost certainly Coleridge's. The point is not simply a pedantic one, for if our sense of love never rises above that of brotherly love, we will not be attaining that sense of divine Love (agape) which is so essential.
One might reasonably equate the three avatars of love--eros, philos, and agape--with the three degrees of mortal mind Mrs. Eddy defines on pp. 115-116 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Obeying the second degree isn't bad or undesirable per se, it simply isn't good and pure enough to lift our thinking to a fuller and more complete understanding, reality, which must take place if we are to demonstrate our oneness with divine Love, our spiritual perfection as God's idea and reflection.
Only a flaneur or naive Micawber passively waiting for something good to turn up could ever think the attainment of a spiritual sense of Love is going to come without many Jacob-like wrestlings or wilderness sessions with the devil like that Christ Jesus experienced in Matthew 4.
God is All and created all. His creation is Love expressed as an eternally present fact. To understand this, even in small measure, requires that we develop a greater spiritual sense, to the degree of embodiment, of Mrs. Eddy's inspired Revelation of Truth, Life, and Love.