“Agape” in all people

While I was finding quotes from other religions, I decided to post them in my other blog: www.agapeworker.wordpress.com 

When I got 37 of them posted and then re-read them, I began to realize that the spiritual power referred to in Christianity with the Greek word, agape, is not limited to Christians, but is created in such a way that it’s in everyone, but with different words used to reference it. So I was able to see that when the famous theologian Paul Tillich said that in agape “ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love,” he was speaking in universal terms. 

I understood Tillich to mean that the spiritual manifestation given to everyone through ultimate reality was agape, and so that manifestation has the potential of transforming all life and universal love. Such is the ultimate power of agape over all life and all love everywhere. But with all spiritual reality for humans, there is a catch. That catch involves freedom. Which means that the responsibility is placed on us. To transform the potentiality into actuality, we have to respond.

So if we can act in such a way as to allow agape power to come alive for us and for our relationships with those around us, then we can let agape transform us. This possibility is available to all.

To me, that is what Thomas Merton was referring to when he said, “Only agape can attain and preserve the good of all.”

As I have continued to reflect about that, the universal meaning has become increasingly important for my understanding of what the access to agape can do for solving the problems that are causing such destructive consequences for human interaction and international conflicts.