Love lost in translation

Years ago, I had heard that the Inuit Indians (Eskimo) have many words for snow. Each word encompasses the essence of the frozen stuff. In English, we use an adjective in front of the word snow to describe it. For example, wet snow, dry snow, powdery snow, icy snow, packing snow etc. Some words just cannot be translated into English without using adjectives to capture the meaning of the word. Some words simply loose their multiple meanings or dimensions all together and thus the ‘true meaning’ of the word gets lost in the translation. When we read the translated version of a text it makes a little sense, but we find it hard to comprehend or grasp the concept.

This is true for the word LOVE and its translation in the Bible. In the Greek language there are no less than five words to our one English word for LOVE. Each of the Greek words encompasses a different essence of the word love. Over the years, when we (Americans-that’s all I can speak for) use the word love we primarily think and know it as a feeling. As many of us have experienced in our lives, love can and does mean more than a feeling. Somewhere over the past two thousand years the multifaceted phenomenon love has lost its translation from the early languages into English. Eros is the Greek word in which our English word erotic derives from. Obviously, this means feelings based upon sexual attraction, desire and craving. The second Greek word for love, storgé, means affection, especially between and toward family members. Interestingly enough, neither eros nor storgé appear in New Testament writings.  Another Greek word for love is philos. The name for the city of Philadelphia is rooted in this Greek word, which means brotherly, reciprocal love. The ‘you do good to me and I will do good to you,’ kind of love.

The final word used by the ancient Greeks to describe love is the most interesting and by far the most under used and/or understood form of love. This word is agapé and it corresponds with the verb agapaó. This is an unconditional love that is based in behavior toward others without regard to their behavior. This type of love, agapé, is the love of deliberate behavior and choice, not a love of feeling. “Agapé is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s when what theologians call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love them because you know God loves him. And he may be the worst person you’ve ever seen.” (Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies, Nov. 17, 1957).

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” (Matthew 5). These are the words spoken by Jesus. We have heard and read this through the years and my guess is that most of us are dumbfounded because we can’t possibly comprehend loving someone who oppresses, murders, tortures, abuses, neglects, or hates us, or anyone we love. How can we love someone who has harmed us? Is Jesus really commanding me to love someone who makes my stomach go into knots or terrifies me? Or is the love Jesus is commanding us to ‘do’ something other than what we know as love; and it too was lost in translation? 

Let’s explore agapé love a little further, “Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek and discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command and why we should live by this command.” (Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies, Nov. 17, 1957). Martin Luther King Jr. does an incredible job explaining how and why we must learn this kind of love. It is agapé love that will save humankind and the world.

How do we learn to love like this agapé love? It is NOT easy. It is something we need to teach ourselves and consciously practice. First, one must look inward at one’s self. This is probably the hardest thing to do. We must analyze whether the ‘hate’ response from an individual towards us is of various jealous reactions and/or other emotions that are prevalent in our human nature, OR is it something we have done to them in the past. Looking inward, we must also consider where we ‘fit’ in this world. What role in society are we apart of? Do people in other countries, cultures etc harbor hatred toward us? Why do people of various religious groups have hatred toward one another? If one is completely honest in this first step of learning to love on this level, you will find that the dislike and hate are reactions to something we have done directly as individuals or indirectly because we are apart of a group. That’s a little hard to swallow! Some of our associations are so far removed that we do not consider them relevant. Whether we are aware or unaware of our actions that have elicited an individual or group of people to react in such a way, we need to put ourselves in their place and decide how we would feel.

Why should we do this? Dislike begets dislike. Hate begets hate. Hating for hating sake just increases hatred in the world. If we hate you because of something that happened and we don’t look inwardly at why, chances are you hate us. Real world examples are abound. Just look at our relationships with other countries. Look at the Middle East and the continual and cyclical killing of people. You bomb us and killed people, so we retaliate. People are killed in the retaliation. People lose family members. Deep hurt takes root. Hate ‘blinds’ people to the ‘real’ reasons that caused the initial hurt. When people are infused in hate they cannot behave correctly. Unborn generations are taught about hateful behaviors and the cycle continues.

Someone has to have sense enough to stop the hate. Jesus is that someone and He is telling us to stop the hate. HE tells us we must love our enemies. If you are hated, then you stop the cycle where it is. You look inward and ask why. You take your enemies point of view. Ask yourself would you hate you if this happened to you? Would you hate you if this happened to your family? Then you do all you can possibly do to stop the cycle. You have to, because Jesus commands us to.

What if the hate has nothing to do with anything you have done or any association you have? There are people that are filled with hate. As Christians we must remember that ALL humans are made in the image of God. This does not mean a select few. That means that somewhere there is something about this person who hates that is good. We search for that goodness. We look hard to find that goodness and we love that goodness because that goodness is from God. We love God, so we love the hater. We do not love the hate, but we love the person who hates.

Agapé love is an action or a doing. A verb. It is a behavior and a choice on how to behave towards others. A quote I have had up on the computer screen for years is, “all that is needed for evil to succeed is, that decent human beings do nothing,” (Edmund Burke). Edmund Burke said this after taking German citizens into concentration camps after World War II. Many of us, I included; find it hard to stand up for what is right. We allow unjust things to happen to the innocent. We don’t want to get involved because it is not affecting us, or at least it is not affecting us directly. “…non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” (Martin Luther King Jr., Loving your enemies, Nov. 17, 1957).

Do I believe this is easy and there is no risk for physical, emotional or mental danger? Am I advocating violence? Absolutely not. Christians are called to something much higher than saving our physical selves. We are called to act as the world does not act. We are called to love those who hate. We are called to take action against hateful acts. We are called to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Not because we ourselves are good, but because God is good; and because Jesus showed us how to love this way and he commands us to. Hate tears down. Love builds up. Love is a power that can redeem and transform. The cycle of hatred and violence has to stop. Christians are Christian not because Jesus was born or crucified. We are Christian because Jesus left the tomb. He IS risen. As such our perspective on the world is radical and completely different than the world’s. Jesus IS risen! That means we need not fear physical, emotional or mental outcomes when we love as Jesus taught us to love.

Staying Connected

If this is your first time reading one of my blog entries, I ask that you read at least the first entry, The Beginning of the Walk, to get an idea of why I am writing and the perspective I am writing from.

Initially, I was questioning my wanting a cell phone with applications that would give me the ability to check my e-mail and Facebook accounts at anytime. I decided that I didn’t want it because I would be tempted to do just that, check my e-mail and Facebook accounts all the time, even in the company of others. I have been in situations where I am interacting with someone and they pull out their phones (or more likely, their phones were never put up to begin with) and then that person decides to check their e-mail or Facebook page, write and send e-mails and update their status page. I can certainly see myself doing the same to others if the technology was available to me.

I came to realize that this technology is not all bad. It allows people to stay connected and ask for help when they need it. It allows for people to ask for prayers, to express deep concerns, to share wonderful joys and exciting news. It can even be used to help serve others.

Then I asked myself, what if I received a friend request on Facebook from God? Wouldn’t I want to stay as connected as possible with Him? Or would I ignore the friend request because I didn’t want Him to ‘know’ everything I was doing or saying? If I did accept God’s friend request would I monitor how I behaved, and what I posted on my status updates? I know this is kind of silly because God knows all that I do and feel, but what if?

What if we all wanted to stay as connected to God as we do with everybody else? What if we were able to check on God’s status updates as we do mere acquaintances on Facebook? What would God post on my wall? Would I always feel like I was doing something wrong, or would there be silence from God? Wouldn’t it be the greatest feeling in the world if God posted on your wall, “I love you.” “I am proud of you.” “I am glad you enjoyed your vacation with your family, how beautiful they are.” “I am seeing all that you are doing and I like it.” Could you imagine? What feelings would you have?

What if I could e-mail God and ask Him questions. “God, my family hates everything I make for dinner. What do they like?” “God, I really need your help with this.” Or “God, I was wondering if you could do this.” Would my e-mails be all about me or would I stop and realize that my relationship with God is NOT one sided? “God, what would you have me do in this situation?” “God, I wanted to thank-you for NOT answering that request I made. I now see that you know what is best for me.” “God, thank-you for loving me, I may never learn that I cannot live on bread alone.”

I think we are all yearning for some tangible something from God. We want Him to answer us back directly. We want Him to call our name. We want Him to make it easy for us. And sometimes when we think God called our name, ‘parted’ all the obstacles in our way to get what we want, we justify it or chalk it up as coincidence because it wasn’t how we expected God to act. And let’s face it, with the world at our fingertips at anytime with our computers and cell phones, we expect God to be just as accessible and easy to communicate with.

Isn’t prayer our e-mail or Facebook status with God? Or has the ‘well run dry on prayer?’ What I mean by the ‘well running dry’ is that possibly we Christians that have grown up in the western hemisphere have lost touch with how to pray and what it means to have a relationship with God.  We have grown up in a culture that emphasizes science and technology. That which is seen, felt and we are able to describe and prove through the scientific method is true. All else cannot be true. So our spiritual growth has focused on serving at a church capacity (being a part of a committee, heading up a project etc) or to serve others, but little has been done in facilitating or teaching us ‘the personal experience of, and a love relationship with, God as a vital part of spiritual growth.’ (Contemplative Prayer, praying when the well runs dry-Joann Nesser).

 I believe there are many people who feel that there is a void. Something is missing in our relationship with God. God is more than what we have come to know. We learn to pray to God with our concerns, petitions and intercessions. After a while, this type of prayer looses its effect on us. Some of us loose our desire to pray in this sort of manner, and we feel guilty about it. Don’t confuse loosing desire to pray intercessions, petitions and going to God with our concerns as loosing our desire for God. We know there must be more to the relationship than this. And there is. ‘This is not just any relationship, but a love relationship with God who is love. Just as any love relationship requires time alone together, we need such times in our relations with God.’ (Contemplative Prayer, praying when the well runs dry-Joann Nesser).

Time alone with God? Most of us want more time because we don’t have enough time in our days to get done what we need to get done. We don’t know where to or how to start having a deeper relationship with God. This brings me back to computers, Facebook, the Internet and e-mail. How much time do we spend looking up things on You Tube, checking our Facebook and e-mail accounts? Could some of the time be used instead to research different types of prayer that would help us begin our journey to a deeper relationship with God?

As in any relationship we have to invest ourselves into it. Our relationship with God will stay at the level it is currently at until we decide to do differently. We can continue to fill the void with material goods, behaviors that make us feel joys and pleasures for a short time, but underneath, deep within each of us there is a yearning for more. Many of us never figure out what that more is. Many of us avoid that yearning. Many of us are afraid of where that yearning may take us. That yearning and that void we try to keep filling with everything BUT God. Look at the yearning and the void as an invitation. An invitation to start developing a deeper relationship with God. Its NOT easy and it can be scary at times, but He promises never to leave you. He promises healing. He promises forgiveness. He promises joy. He promises inner peace. He promises unconditional love. When you decide to seek God on a deeper level you will begin to see the world differently. You begin to change. You realize how sweet and deep God’s love is for you and ALL of His creation.