" We must love one another or die." - W.H. Auden

I have to thank all of you for your love, warmth and upholding in this time. I am muddling through, with the huge support of my friends. I got all of my health insurance paperwork in, all the while aware of the huge privilege I've been given in having that resource. Though I still feel that there is some "soul-sickness" for me to minister to, I will not turn my nose up at doctors and what they might offer me. If a pill could help place me back on the plane where I can experience things unfiltered by the weaker parts of my neurophysiology, then I'll take it with thanks. I’ve had the feeling that I can’t attend to the deeper parts of my “soul-sickness” until I have some of the symptoms under control.

One of the good things about having "all stripped away"...(worship is dry, prayer is dry, spiritual reading is dry)...is that I find the one well that never goes dry is Love.

Duh. I know, there is a part of me that squirms, too. But it's true. When everything else burns away, I am left with Love. It is the one thing that can reach me, it is the one thing I am still motivated to communicate, it is the one thing that I don’t ever doubt the existence of. When I am fussed about the existence of God with a capital “G” and a personality and a will, and the ability to “love me personally” or whatever, I suddenly realize that if it turned out that there was no God but Love, and even if that Love existed only in our ability to Love one another, things would still come out okay in the balance.

Of course this Love is indefinable, but that worries me, as there are so many lesser and harmful things masquerading around under that august title. There was a time when I thought that "all I needed was love" and then things would come out right, but it turned out, dreadfully, that I had no idea what I meant when I uttered the word. Or, what I meant was not what I needed to make it all come out right. And things most certainly did not come out alright.

Pilate can have his question. These days, I am not so concerned with "what is truth." Nowadays I think maybe I have a better idea myself, but I want to know, from the experience of my (f)Friends..."What is love?"

Kate asked in a comment for more clarification of what I was looking for. I began to write this in a comment but decided to ammend my post.
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I don't know if I am looking for a definition of Love - once a friend set me the OED entry for Love, and it was overwhelming. I know there is more than one sort of love, all informed, to some extent or another, by the underlying fountain of Love.

So maybe not a definition, but a discussion.

I want to go father than a pat "God is Love" and far beyond the cliches and cuddly bits of "the world's love. A big theme of my life has been misinterpreting "Love Hurts" and "Love is Hard Work" and "Love Bears all Things". Perhaps, ironically, I've been too much of a puritain about love.

How do you love without counting the cost, without being destroyed? How do you love "a selfish object" unselfishly, without harming your soul? I know so many people who struggle with this in their family, in friends, in dealing with the dysfunctional and harmful, who inspite of their dysfunction, must be loved.

Do you cling on, and sing "As long as he needs me..." and trust that God will give you the strength to go on in the friendship or relationship, that if you do your loving part, God will make up the remainder? That's what I thought at one point. Eventually, I had to let go. And though the fruits have shown me that I made a good choice, my mind often teases me with the question "did I just lose faith?" When I read about how God is "well able to perfect all things concerning us", and I look at the disasterous parts of my life that I managed to leave behind with my last shreds of self-preservation, I wonder if a Saint could have stayed and watched God mend the tatters. Then I think about the way God helps those who help themselves. When I have left destructive friendships and relationships, I didn't feel it was a vote of no-confidence in God's ability to heal...it was because I knew that I myself was in physical, emotional, and/or spiritual danger, and that I did not have the ability to withstand it, and even if God could have helped me, I had not been given the ability to recieve that help.

So anyway. I want to hear what other people have to say about this crucial subject, so I'll go back into some silence. I want us to dig deeply, and get beyond "common knowledge". I am beginning to feel that these questions of Love are the most important ones we can ask. It is our greatest commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you." and some say He loved us right to the Cross. There is that in me that does not feel unfaithful because I was unwilling to be crucified for a "selfish object". And yet, in truth, I myself am a "selfish object". This is weighing on me very, very heavily. Thomas Kelley said "We are not called to die on every cross, nor are we expected to".

But is the cross of love universal? Can you sacrifice yourself, your life, your happiness, and your sanity, to Love? I don't feel that God calls us to love to the point of our own mutilation. To pain, perhaps, but not disfigurment. And how do you know the difference?

This is an exercise I can't escape: Think of the most foul human, historical or living, that you can, and know that in their core, they carry the seed of God in them, and for that seed, MUST be loved, ("love one another or die.") if the world is to be healed. Think of them as a 2 month old baby, smiling for the first time, unblemished, and know that this is the truth about them. And know that you are called to love them unto death. And then, think of the people in your life whose presence and actions harm you deeply.

I do this, and I see the image of my baby sister..(just a few posts below). I would die for her. If every human is as precious as this (and they are), why am I not willing to be "deeply harmed" for someone, let alone dive under a truck for them? Why does it feel wrong to allow myself to be "deeply harmed" by someone for love of them, when it is supposedly the greatest love to "give your life"?

It keeps me up at night.

I should add that at this moment, by the grace of God, I'm not in a position where I need to make this choice. I am surrounded by loving and healthy people. But I have been in that situation, several times in the past, and have never come out feeling right. And I know people right now who are struggling with facets of the same issue. It seems so important.