Agapé and 3 Aspects of Reality

There are 3 aspects of reality that must be accepted in order for life to flourish. And yet, sadly for our survival, most people in modern civilization try to do the opposite — they desperately try to deny that acceptance. Of course, that only causes more suffering.

These same people have been misled by the modern world to think that civilization will protect them from those 3 aspects of reality. Such desperate effort to avoid acceptance is what causes a great deal of mental suffering and anguish. All that effort only leads to the illusion that they won’t have to concern their little selves about accepting them.

But at least there have been English words for the first 2 aspects. And in the 14th Century, as England changed from using Latin as the main language for religion, Christian leaders tried to invent a new word for the 3rd aspect. But so strong was the effort to keep from accepting the 3rd aspect that the English word’s meaning became corrupted until now it doesn’t mean anything like what it was meant to convey spiritually.

Those original English words for 3 aspects of reality were death, pain, and charity.

Most people have been indoctrinated to think that civilization was developed in order to keep them from having to accept the reality of death, pain, and charity.

ASPECT #1 = DEATH. Even though modern civilization has been franticly extending life expectancy, the most that has been accomplished is to get a few people to live passed 100. But it has become very dangerous for people to long to live forever. Eventually, every single person must face the reality that death comes to all beings. So we might as well accept it.

ASPECT #2 = PAIN. Even though modern civilization has been indoctrinating people to think that the purpose of the vast medical industry is to eliminate pain, that also is impossible. So much mental suffering has been caused by not accepting the reality that all people will experience pain in life. More suffering has been caused by trying to avoid pain than actually comes from pain.

ASPECT #3 = AGAPé. I use the Greek word in its ancient meaning because there no longer is any English word that conveys the original, spiritual meaning. When European scholars first translated the Latin version of the Bible, they discovered a problem: there was no word in French, German, or English to translate the Latin word pronounced ‘chár-itis.’ They should have gone to the original Greek version to try understanding why that Latin word was a very rough translation of the Greek ‘agapé.’ The English scholars took a cue from French scholars and invented the English word ‘charity.’ The main point is that the Latin did not use their word for ‘love,’ just as the Greek version did not use any of the normally used Greek words for ‘love.’ But the efforts had grown so strong in the 19th Century to avoid the spiritual meaning of the word, that all English translations changed ‘charity’ to ‘love.’ At least by going back to the Greek word, ‘agapé,’ the chances might be better to try getting modern people’s attention to see the spiritual meaning. Such effort is the purpose of this blog.

Pray for Agapé to be felt by others

Recently a friend loaned me Anne Lamott’s book about prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow.  I was very inspired by her words. But I want to do something different with a few quotes from her book. I do this because there were places where she seemed to be referring to what the original New Testament called ‘agapé’ — like when she talked about Love with a capital L. Even though she didn’t ever use the Greek word, I decided to see how her words could take on increased meaning by changing ‘love’ to ‘agapé.’

When Anne Lamott talked about how she prayed for people, she described that as asking for health and happiness for them, and for their children; and for them to have help to have a sense of peace; and for them to feel the agapé of God. I consider that the basis for holding others in prayer.

And the way she described spiritual power, I could see she was meaning the animating energy of agapé. Also I think she was referring to the light of agapé when she talked about the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, allowing us to perceive at least bits of deeper reality. 

She talked about the mystery of people surviving unsurvivable losses and finally coming to happiness again. And I interpret her as marveling that the only way that was at all possible had to do with agapé coming to them through their closest people and through a community of support, helping them and surrounding them with agapé.

Then when she described the wonder of our hearts dealing with the extreme tragedies of any historical moment, she gave an inspiring statement of how we keep from being crushed by overwhelming international news reports, which I interpret as: agapé falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. As she does whatever she can to help people survive, she claims that agapé pulls people back to their feet — so bodies and souls are fed — bones and lives heal — new blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.

And so, even though she never uses the Greek word, we can find a deeper spiritual awareness to her inspiration when we can read her insightful wisdom without getting bogged down in thinking about common love the way it usually comes across in modern society. When our reading is shocked a little by coming across the unusual word, ‘agapé, we are sent into a different perspective and so are able to see the spiritual meaning of Lamott’s insight.

The Meaning of Agapé

More than 5 years ago this blog started when I was led to naming a spiritual power with the ancient Greek word ‘agapé.’ This happened as I began to open to that spiritual awareness during my morning meditation time.

I traced all this to my new understanding of Romans 5:5 as I left ‘agapé’ in the Greek instead of making the common mistake of translating it as ‘love’: “the agapé of God has been poured into the center of our being.” So that new perspective has led me to spend morning meditation time focusing on accepting the spiritual flowing of agapé by “sensing” agapé as “access” to more profound spiritual experience. I let that bring me access to spiritual “manifestation” of divine Presence.

One day early in this new practice, after morning meditation, I became aware that I was being led to a book in my collection that I hadn’t read in 4 years. That book was Love, Power, and Justice by the theologian, Paul Tillich; I opened the book and on pg. 33 found this: “… agape enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agape the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agape ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love.” That confirmed what I was experiencing.

Reading the word “manifests” had a powerful impact on me! When I saw the way he connected agapé with divine manifestation -- used in the same way that it had come to me in meditation -- I was convinced that a breakthrough had come to me. In the weeks that followed, this became increasingly more important in my morning meditation. Finally as Jan. began, I decided to start this blog dedicated to exploring agapé as a spiritual power that is our access to the manifested divine Presence.

That last sentence has become for me a verbal ‘touchstone.’ Because I consider universally ever-present spiritual Source to be so far beyond the awareness of humans (no matter how much of a spiritual genius a particular human could be), we need a way of access. That is, without some type of manifestation to us, we have no ultimate spiritual awareness. So then we need some way to access that spiritual manifestation. And that way has been given us -- "poured into the center of our being."

During these 5 years I have been opened to the awareness of agapé as that access power to whatever divine manifestation that is available to humans. I continue to become more deeply aware when I pray for agapé to draw me into the intimacy of divine Presence. As I describe in my book, The Seven Steps of Agapé Prayer, I pray first that agapé power flows in the life of a person who is spiritually important to my development, then in the lives of specific friends and family members, then in the lives of strangers I see on my walk to where I meditate every morning, then in the lives of people whom I have found to be difficult, and then in the lives of people in groups such as churches. During this meditation time, as I have my awareness opened to the vastness of divine Presence, I follow the vastness to pray both for agapé in the lives of all sentient beings, and finally for agapé to flow for all of Creation.