Suffered Love

What is love? Seeking a consensual answer to this question in dictionaries can prove fruitless. The diversity of uses and meanings and the complexity of the feelings it encompasses make love especially difficult to define consistently. It will depend on the specialty of the consulted lexicon; if it is biology, it will say that love is related to a series of very particular chemical reactions in the brain, as well as variations in the levels of some hormones in our body, which usually trigger pleasurable and even addictive emotions.

In the philosophical context, love is a virtue of human beings that represents all affection, kindness, and compassion, linked to good and opposed to its antagonist, evil. For psychology, it is a feeling related to affection and attachment, producing a series of attitudes, emotions, and experiences in its various forms and acting as an important facilitator of interpersonal relationships. For religion, it transcends feeling and is considered the manifestation of a state of the soul or mind; it is goodness, compassion, affection, and the engine that drives all selfless actions directed toward doing good, identified in some religions with the force that keeps the universe united.

For anthropology, what we know as love seems to be an evolved state of the primitive survival instinct, which kept human beings united and heroic in the face of threats and facilitated the continuation of the species through reproduction. According to current science, expressions of brain processes that evolution provided to humans; the idea of the soul, or something like the soul, probably appeared between one million and several hundred thousand years ago.

Not only do we find a variety of definitions, but also types of love such as romantic, unconditional, fraternal, filial, platonic, or in Greek, the love Eros, Philia, and Agape.

And an etymological analysis won’t help much, which will tell us that from Latin, love is 'mama,' and even less from Greek, 'A' as in 'without' and 'without love, death,' rather pointing to a characteristic: Love is eternal.

Indeed, our brief journey through dictionaries was not very useful, as we were after a universal and abstract concept that, as such, has complex meanings since it is not something tangible and its interpretation can be very subjective. However, if we consult another book, entirely singular, the Bible, we will find other answers to our search, perhaps even opposed. Yet they do not guarantee the end of the search; rather, they could motivate further investigation.

For example, in the Bible, love, while universal, is neither a concept nor abstract, because in the Bible, love is God, which manifests in humanity in different ways according to the types of relationships established: romantic (Eros), among brothers or friends (Philia), or that of God toward His creatures (Agape).

“He who does not love does not know God; for God is love” (1 John 4:8)
“…God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16).

These Johannine texts are absolutely confirmed by one of the most beautiful writings of the inspired apostle Paul when he writes the first letter to the Corinthians. Chapter 13 contains the most precious and precise description of what and how love is.

It begins by saying that regardless of what capacities or skills we have, without love they are useless, and I am nothing. Neither intelligence, nor faith, nor generosity or altruism count; I can give myself for others, but it will have no value. God is love; without God, I am nothing, I can do nothing. With God, everything. The mentioned writing continues as follows:

Love is patient, it is kind; love does not envy, love does not boast, it is not proud;
it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs;
it does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails; but where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-10)

All characteristics of Divinity. Without a doubt, it is good, it is not boastful, it does not glory itself, it does what is right, it is not resentful, it is forgiving, it is not easily angered, it is just and true, all these are virtues we should seek from Him. And the own of Deity: eternal, omniscient, perfect.

But it begins by saying that love is patient; it does not say that it was, as alluding to the passages of Christ's passion. It says that it is and is, speaking of a permanent condition of a state of being. God is patient.

It is hard to assimilate, but God is patient in His relationship with humanity. We recall when shortly after creation, He says that:

“The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” (Genesis 6:6).

This statement attempts to express in human language what God might feel in response to the rebellion of His creatures. It troubled His heart because His total, full love -- such that He was willing to give everything -- was not and is not reciprocated, a permanent condition as well. It hurt Him in His heart; such pain escapes human understanding, perhaps seen faintly by someone who loves with a love that is not characteristic of any human being, because it is received from God, and he gives it unreservedly to a child, brother, or friend, or to someone he loves who does not reciprocate.

When there is no reciprocity, suffering occurs. God is not loved as He would like to be, and He is patient; that unique love that flows among us is also so. The difference is that we hardly make it explicit; rather, we try to give it to the extent that we believe we receive it, paradoxically, to avoid suffering; yet God tells us how He loves us and how He would like us to love Him:

“If you love me, keep my commands.” (John 14:15)

A brief parenthesis here to clarify that His commandments are all, not ten, nor more important than others, nor the two that summarize ten, nor the new one that synthesizes them; and keeping His commandments is what makes us happy because that is the purpose of all law: to regulate and make pleasant coexistence among us; loving Him means loving each other. He wants to be loved in a way that makes us happy and saved. Because whoever does not love Him has not known Him and in knowing Him is eternal life.

When we love Him in this way, will He stop being patient? Not until Jesus returns, because love is patient, only that without fear of the lack of reciprocity because:

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)

That it brings punishment means that it is patient. So we will suffer, but for not spending enough time with the loved one, for not communicating more frequently, because we will want greater and better permanence and because love is never reciprocal in form, and that must be accepted.