To start this 4th year of writing this blog, I think that one of the most liberating aspects of my long searching about agape has come from separating agape from love. I’ve written a lot in this blog about why the English word ‘love’ is not the right translation of ‘agape,’ but I haven’t written about my personal experiences with finding different meaning in the power of agape.
The more I experienced the deep spiritual aspect of agape, the more I realized the profound consequences of agape not being generated by human emotions. Even though there are enough similarities between agape and love to cause the historical confusion of translating agape with the word ‘love,’ that very confusion brought about a slight “detour” in the spiritual development of the human race.
The problem came from a shift in focus. The major focus, for advancing the overall flowing of agape among people, was meant to be on the spiritual source of agape. But by confusing it with love, the focus shifted to human emotions. Once I began to see the extent of that problem, I was able to shift my focus back to the spiritual source for agape. Then I was able to detect the presence of agape in relationships where it was not named as such but the meaning was there.
An example of that was a report by Pierre Pradervand in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Stories for a Better World.” He used a quote from the Sermon on the Mount to start a practice of blessing people. In that section about having agape for enemies, he used the KJV “bless those who curse you.” For him that became a spiritual breakthrough to end his resentment against someone who had caused him to quit a job. He wrote about the changes in his perspective brought about by blessing everyone around him: “to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all. … To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total unrestricted good for others and events from the deepest chamber of your heart. It means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with utter awe, that which is always a gift from the Creator. To bless is to invoke divine care upon, to speak or think gratefully for, to confer happiness upon -- although we are never the bestower, but simply the joyful witnesses of life’s abundance.” (p. 270-271) Then he concluded by referring to an encounter he finally had with the person he had resented so much: “This person, whom I had seen as my tormentor and enemy, suddenly appeared as what the universe had always intended: my teacher on the path of greater love.” (p. 272)
Based on the description of how this impacted his life, Pierre was actually referring to agape when he talked about “greater love.” His comments were so similar to ones I have made at times in these blog postings, that I was very moved by his report on what unfolded in his life.
