"If I know what love is, it is because of you."
-Herman Hesse
Love is the greatest of all the virtues. And it is the foundation of everything that is good. Nothing else has been written about more often than love, or studied more closely than love, or longed for more universally than love, or confused more regularly than love.
Love is why human beings were created, and what we should live to be and do. But what is it? After all the philosophizing, and theologizing, and soliloquizing, what is love?
Stop.
There’s a place and a time for defining, and analyzing, and categorizing. But to really get at the breadth and depth of love, and to really understand how to do it, we need to start with a different question.
Because fundamentally love is not a what, love is a who.
I can ask you to define what love is, and you might be able to quote someone. And that warms you about as much as watching a video of a fire in a fireplace. But if I ask you who love is, you come alive. Because love is incarnational, embodied, like no other virtue. Love wears a face.
Love has hugged you. Who is love?
Love has kissed you. Who is love?
Love has held your hand. Who is love?
Love has laughed with you. Who is love?
Love has cried with you. Who is love?
Love has sacrificed for you. Who is love?
Love has fought for you. Who is love?
We love because we have been loved; that’s how we know what love is, and that’s how we know that life is worth living.
Can you even imagine your life without love?
I think of so many who have blessed my life by loving me, and teaching me how to love. But today I'm thinking particularly of my father-in-law, on what would have been his 68th birthday. He’s been dead for fifteen years now…dead, but not gone. Because life in this world ends, but love doesn’t. And that’s everything.
I love you, Mike.
Question for reflection: Who are the faces of love for you?
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About Me
- Ross Porter
- Dr. Ross Porter received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Master of Divinity (Theology) and Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he first became interested in the integration of psychology and spirituality. He is a teacher, author, counselor, and consultant, specializing in integrative psychology, virtue ethics and family systems. He has taught at the high school, college, and graduate school levels. Ross is also the Founder and Executive Director of Stillpoint Family Resources, a non-profit organization that offers counseling services to individuals, couples, and families in crisis, with nine different office locations throughout Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties (specific office locations can be found at www.stillpointfamilyresources.org). In 2009, Dr. Porter was named an “Outstanding Angeleno” by the Los Angeles Daily News. Ross and his wife Jennifer have been married for 21 years, and have four beautiful children. John Michael, their son who has Down Syndrome is their first born.
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