Christian Smith: Love is relating to persons and things beyond the self in a way that involves the purposive action of extending and expending of oneself for the genuine good of others whether in friendship, families, communities, among strangers, or otherwise.
Mars Hill Audio Journal, vol 112, disc 1 track 2
David Schindler: Love is the basic act and order of things. Love is that which first brings each thing into existence, and that in, through, and for which, each thing continues in existence.
Mars Hill Audio Journal. vol 112 disc 1 track 3
1. Read both statements, not just for the idea or concept expressed, but asking that the truth they both express may grasp your heart. This means you, or I, as reader, is asking God for the grace to let what is being said penetrate us to the center of our being, our core, or heart of hearts. We are asking that our reading take place at the level of a prayer.
2.The first statement sees love as a human act, something I or you do, our choice, an exercise of our free will. We are the source of the activity, the loving. We are in charge, so to speak. Love depends on our decision. To some degree, that's true. But none of us would be able to love if love were not done to us first.
3. The first quotation would not be possible for us to enact without the second already being in place.
The second quotation sees love as what God is, or who God is, the Source and Origin of all that is. It calls to mind the Paul's words where he says in Acts "In him we live and move and have our being" (17:28). We have our being in him. We are rooted, or grounded in him. Not just that we are in his grasp like a child is in a parent's arms, but more than that, we we live and move in him, which means he lives and moves in us, much as branches live attached to a vine, or as the sap in a tree flows throughout the whole tree through all the branches. This is more than the soul, the breath of life, the soul God breathes into man. It is grace, the movement of the Spirit which energizes us. In him we live and move, because we have our being in him. He sustains us with or without our awareness of him, with or without our cooperation. Unlike a child who can squirm out of his parent's arms and run about, we cannot separate from him even when we deny we are in his arms.
4.The God who is the ground of our being, in whom we live and move, is present in us and through us whether we are aware of Him or not. He is closer to us than our pulse, our breath. He is much closer to us than we are to ourselves.
He, being Creative Love, is the stage on which the drama of our lives is acted out by us. We are somewhat like dancers who perform on the stage floor. We are concerned with our movements, appearance, performance and the applause we hope for, but take for granted the floor which make our dance possible.
Better yet, God is the context, from which, and in which, we are making the choices that determine our destiny.
The second quotation brings the idea of order into love, which is something we usually do not associate with love. In God, I see love as self-giving: the Father generating the Son from all eternity by giving his own divine nature to the Son. The idea of order usually springs into my mind with the Son, the Logos. the intelligent/intelligible Mystery in whom and through whom all things are made. Surely the self gift of the Father includes the Infinite Wisdom that is in him, otherwise order would not be in the Logos. But my little pea-brain can only manage to handle one concept at a time.
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