|
ABOUT CHRIST HOPE CHURCH'S THEOLOGY
John tells us
that "God Is Love" (1John 4 v.7) St. John uses the Greek word "agape", meaning selfless love. So let's converse a bit about
"Agape" and its meaning.... for on this "rock" of selfless love we are building our new Community.
1. The word "agape"'is
a Greekword meaning "selflesslove". Agapic Love is the energy within every human being, by birth... to go forth from self
and share one's self for the benefit of others, unconditionally... so as to bring about the growth in another...and, at the
same time, experience God as the ground of such energy within one's self.. with the hope of touching the same energy in the
other, which also has God as its grounding. (try diagramming that one).
2. Agapic Love builds on NATURE. St. Thomas
Aquinas teaches that " God's Grace builds on Nature." Therefore to have some integration of one's whole natural self is integral
to agapic loving...spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. It is important to at least be working on these
issues. Progress, not perfection.
3. Agapic Love is empathetic. This means to be sensitive both externally and internally,
to another's feelings. Empathy means to feel the feelings of the other person, without being "overcome" by them. Sympathetic
is called
for when you have not experienced the same situation.
4. Agapic Love is being able to mirror the feelings
and thoughts of another, without judgement.
5. Agapic Love is being really present to another.
6. Agapic Love
is validating the feelings of another. One does not have to agree with another's feelings, but another's feeling are their's...they
own them.
7. Agapic Love means honoring another's map of the world, even though it may differ from yours.
8.
Agapic Love means psychically embracing the good in another and communicating it effectively. Love is not enough, it must
be communicated in a way that the other person gets your message in a real way.
9. Agapic Love means meeting the REAL
needs of the other, especially the significant persons in one's life. Another's "wants" is another matter.
10. Agapic
Love elicits and gives permission for another to share feelings: past and present.
11. Agapic Love attempts to help
expand and nurture another's map of the world..WHEN IT MAKES COMMON SENSE.
12. Agapic Love means making another feel
"special".
13. Agapic Love means that sometimes one must draw gentle boundries and lines for another.
14. Agapic
Love means that you do not have "absolute" knowledge about your own beliefs. To quote Albert Einstein: "Do you think that
in the bowels of your being that you could be wrong?"
15. Agapic Love means that you are always a learner.
16
Agapic Love asks for mutuality, self sacrifice, long suffering, and endurance.
17. Agapic Love is being aware that
quick results are not always forthcoming.
18. Agapic Love means that, in the long run, it will ALWAYS produce good,
even though you may never see its results.
19. Agapic Love means that you give your positive energy to another without
manipulating the outcome. " I love you; take my love and run with it the way you want to run. I have no preconceived ideas
about how you might take advantage of my love."
20. Agapic Love means seeking dialogue and feed-back.
21. Agapic
Love means allowing another to embrace the void and confusion of life.
22. Agapic Love means helping another be creative
in their own situation.
23. Agapic Love means helping another dream about their possibilities and give them hope in
continual "reinvention" of themselves.
24. Agapic Love means aiding another get the help they need when you can't do
it.
25. Agapic Love means helpling other to "imagine."
26. Agapic Love means putting some hard work and labor
into one's relationships, especially the significant relationships.
27. Agapic Love means being committed to one's
own personal growth and learning from mistakes.
28. Agapic Love means being "vulnerable" and sharing one's own "vulnerabilty"
with others. This builds emotional intimacy.
29. Agapic Love means helping another accept the limitations of being
human. We are creatures, not gods.
30. Agapic Love means proceeding slowly and gently in one's relationships. Don't
move in on someone with a big bang, expecting a relation-ship to mature overnight.
31. Agapic Love means: "I need you
because I love you." NOT : "I love you because I need you."
32. Agapic Love means that you concern yourself with YOUR
capacity to love, not seeing yourself as an object just waiting "to be" loved. Love is a faculty to be learned and given away.
33.
Agapic Love means being aware of releasing another "from bondage", not putting them "in more bondage".
34. Agapic Love
is an art.
35. Agapic Love means freeing another so that the other is, in turn, able to love freely and responsibly
in response.
These definitions of Agapic Love are what we primarily talk about and share about at Christ Hope Church.
We call it "God Talk". Agapic Love talk is God talk. I suggest that we all need to grow and become conscious of the nature
of God. The least wrong way to talk about God, the least incorrect way to talk about God, is that God Is Love. Do agapic love,
and you do God. Want to find God in your life? Do agapic love. It is God who is doing the loving.
|
