A few thoughts I don't want to lose...

The new year is less than two hours old. I think I had a flash of insight, but I'm still processing it. In the meantime...

I attended a friend's wedding tonight. Good Catholic Mass, interesting homily by the priest. As with most wedding homilies, the topic was love, and the usual spiel tying the love of the happy couple to the love Jesus has for us. Nice, safe, on-message and non-controversial. What was interesting, and to my mind, unique, was the way the priest defined the terms eros and agape (did you know the Greeks had 5 words for love?). Eros, he said, is "I love you for what you can do for me". Agape, on the other hand, is "I love you for what I can do for you". Okay, so that's like grade-school deep, but it hit something in me. Now, clearly, the priest's point was that agape, the love Jesus commanded his disciples to have for one another, is rooted in service, doing for others, and so far, no new ground has been broken here.

But sitting there, watching my friend get married, and thinking upon my own love life over the past 3o months, it occurred to me that there might be something to this distinction. Now clearly, eros is a big part of my love for her, both in the physical sense, and in that normal, "you make me feel good about myself when you're around" way. But I think in another sense, there's a good bit of agape. I love her because I believe I'm better for her than anyone else. I love her because I understand her when she needs to be understood. I love her because I can show her the affection and regard the other guy can't. I love her because I can need her more than he can, I can miss her when she's not there, and tell her so when she is. I love her because I can make her dreams and aspirations at least as important as my own. I love her because I'd never blow off one of her kids' activities just because I'm playing video games. I love her because she'd come home to a clean house and prepared dinner at least as often as not.

Okay, certainly, not the points the priest had in mind, at least not exactly. And surely, I'm not doing very good at loving all of my fellow humans in the same fashion. Maybe I'm just stretching a point to fit. I do that. And this post may not survive...just had some thoughts that needed to be put down before the champagne wears completely off.

(For the record, three 12 oz beers and two 3 oz glasses of champagne, over the course of 4 hours. On a 350-lb man, that's a pretty low BAC.)