“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms” - Socrates

Recently I was asked if I still love someone.  The question is an interesting one because this person is one I’ve known for a while and been extremely close to and who has brought a cargoship-load of hurt.  My response was “Uh…what do you mean by LOVE?”  I was only partly being evasive.  In this week of soul-testing and spiritual fruit evaluation I can’t help but come back to this question of what love means and work on defining terms.

When I go to webster.com to define love I get

1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child>

Paul in the the bible at 1 Corinthians gives us his insight with

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Some things I find not too difficult to accept when it comes to a definition of love.  First, it is a feeling – at least sometimes.  There’s even some research that suggests that the feelings of being in love (the “obsessive thinking about one’s beloved, craving for union with him or her, euphoria, and increased energy”) are related to a chemical called the nerve growth factor (NGF).  An interesting finding in this study was that the NGF levels were elevated in couples who were newly in love but decreased after a year or so to matched levels of those of couples who have been in a relationship for a longer period of time.

Secondly, love can be defined by its actions, e.g. it’s patient and polite, it protects, it perseveres. Love can be defined with verbs.  The verse from 1 Corinthians is an example of love as a verb.  The greek word in that verse is agape and it’s a noun that acts like a verb.  This word, like much of the greek language, takes on many meanings depending on context but, for me at least, always include three major concepts.

• First, agape love is unconditional. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t require something first – or after – to act.  There are no “what’s in if for me?” negotiations or “if-then” statements associated with agape.

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  Secondly, agape love is for everyone. You really are supposed to love your enemies too.  There’s this same tension in the following from wikipedia:

In Confucianism, lian is a virtuous benevolent love. Lian should be pursued by all human beings, and reflects a moral life. The Chinese philosopher Mozi developed the concept of ai (?) in reaction to Confucian lian. Ai, in Mohism, is universal love towards all beings, not just towards friends or family, without regard to reciprocation. Extravagance and offensive war are inimical to ai.

• Finally, agape is permanent.  When all is finished and all is complete “these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”  There’s no divorce in agape; it is perpetual and never ending.

“Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being ‘in love’, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other … and when all the pretty blossom has fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”  -Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (from John Harris)

So, back to the question:  Do I still love this person?  Well if webster.com asks me then my feelings of warmth and affection have definitely cooled.  If 1 Corinthians 13 asks, and I get to respond on a scale of 1-10, then I can muster up a weak…”yes”.  I  recognize the immaturity in myself that makes me equivocate and vacillate on whether I can still love someone who has hurt me.  I also recognize that this immaturity weakens my soul.  This is where the love as a choice comes in and must supersede and override the feeling.  The question asked was ‘do I still love’ but maybe it’s better presented as “Will I choose to love?”

Fall seven times, stand up eight.- Japanese Proverb

If you’re planning a long backpacking or hiking trip you take the time to consider what gear you want to bring along.  Everything you bring you carry and everything you carry weighs something.  The more you bring the more your back must bear.  You whittle the list until you’re sure it’s down to the essentials, the things you need to do what you need to do.

When I think of packing for life and my soul there are several essential character traits that I want to make sure I bring with me.  One of these is perseverance.  Perseverance is defined as a “steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness.”

It’s not a common trait seen on the trail of life.  Shakespeare has this to say about it:

Perseverance, dear, my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery.

How do we develop this?  One word – suffer.  The more you suffer the more you require perseverance.  It’s produced in your soul in the amount that is demanded.  If you live a life of ease and repose you’ll require very little.  If your goals, dreams and aspirations challenge, prod and spur you on your perseverance tank will fill commensurately.  Like a muscle, perseverance will adapt and grow stronger only to the level of stress that you bring to it.  Lift heavier weights get a stronger back.  As you persist through more difficult trials you will develop more perseverance.

The thing about perseverance too is that it’s not the end result.  If that was it what a downer it would be.  So, if perseverance is produced by suffering, what’s next?  What does perseverance develop?  Character.  And after character comes hope.  Yep, the path to hope goes through pain.  It’s why one author in the bible says that we are to consider hard times and trials with joy because we know good things are produced in us, in our souls.

Sorry there’s no quick fix, no pill one can swallow to get this.  There’s only one way up this mountain and it’s the hard way.  So what are you going to do?  How about fall seven times, stand up eight.  Fall again?  Get up again. And again.  And again.  Don’t quit.  Don’t give up.  As Thomas Edison says

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Don’t you just love midterms and final exams?

The Workout

The workout this week is a self-administered examination of your soul. The assessment will focus on identified core, strong-soul, outcomes and has a possible score of 120. This score is based on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the highest) for the following 12 different, testable attributes:

• Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, knowledge, perseverance, and humility.

The assessments must be experientially based, i.e. you must have an encounter or experience that provides opportunity to measure the component. (In other words you must live life; no sequestering away in a monastery retreating from temptation.)  For example:  an irate coworker enters your office and mocks, derides and scorns your performance at a recent project meeting. This becomes an opportunity for you to measure, by your responses, 1. how patient you are; 2. your level of humility; and 3. your degree of self control.

You may require multiple experiences to be able to test all 12 but each attribute must be measured through a real life test this week.  Don’t sit and think about what your score is; rather, live through an event and watch your score happen.  We’re trying to measure behaviors and “what is” not what we want it to be.

You may also find that an opportunity to test patience for you won’t be a test for someone else.  We’re all going to be challenged in different ways.

Potential Difficulties

There are several problems with a test like this. Humility, validity and subjectivity are some. The fact that some may be unable to score themselves highly in the category “humility” because of the seeming contradiction is a problem.  Validity and subjectivity are related. How accurate can a test like this be if self-administered?  Part 2 of the test (coming next week) will address these issues.

A problem we need to address immediately relates to the definitions of each component.  Below are some descriptions that you can use to help gauge your scores.  You can select other definitions, just make sure you use the same ones when the test comes up again.

Measures

Love – among other things, love, is defined in the Bible through some important “nots”. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love is a sacrificial other focus rather than a selfish me focus.

Joy – joy is a deep, foundational happiness that is independent of circumstance or situation.

Peace – the absence of war. When we discuss peace as a attribute of soul-health we’re talking about the cessation of conflict, tension and insecurity within us.

Patience – the dictionary definition of patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset”. It’s not easily flustered or rushed; it takes the long-term view.

Kindness – is consideration, friendliness, politeness, caring.

Goodness – doing the right thing at the right time with the right motive; morally virtuous.

Faithfulness – loyalty, trustworthiness.

Gentleness – is a rod of iron wrapped in layers of cotton; softness; “strength under control” (Weber).

Self-control – the ability to regulate self; the capacity to choose my actions rather than have them chosen for me; Stephen Covey describes this as being proactive rather than reactive.

Knowledge – wisdom, deep learning, sensitivity; one aspect of this that is relevant to the test is self-awareness and consciousness.

Perseverance – tenacity, the steadfastness in the face of difficulty or delay; the never-give-up attitude.

Humility – a life priority structure that places others above you; the absence of arrogance and/or haughtiness.

The workout this week is physical, direct, simple and to the (Soul) point:

Take a 30 minute walk through a cemetary.

The workout is simple but profound: define, describe, characterize the strong soul. We describe someone who is physically strong by stating how much, how fast, how far that person lifts, runs, or throws. How do you identify a strong soul?  What qualities, characteristics, mindsets, behaviors, attitudes does the fit soul contain?

Deadline: Friday.
Post your definition in the comments.

…or rather, look for the good in others.  This week find something positive to say to every person you meet and interact with.  That’s EVERY person, 100% of your interactions looking for the good and the positive in others.

Share your thoughts, problems and/or questions in the comments section.

*thanks to Tom W. for the workout idea.