The Journey To Love

I’m increasingly resolving to post more on the topic of concrete love. I wrote an introduction to the problem I see us facing in the abstractness of Christian language several months ago, and am feeling guilty for not keeping up with my intended posting on the subject.

Parker has in our recent conversations expresses disagreement with my hypotheses (for lack of a better word) on the state of Christian culture and the causes and explanations I attempt to offer. I think he is resolved to assume we disagree ever since I supposedly “moved to Portland to become a hippie liberal” and often disagrees on a basis of the abstractness of the solutions I offer. 

But I say “Nay! How could it be that Love is not the answer? “

On Saturday Parker and Jessie Moore and I sat on the library lawn in Hood River after getting french toast for breakfast downtown. I find it often difficult not to bring up debatable conversation, especially more recently when hanging out with Parker. On this particular occasion I mentioned a line from the book Jesus for President that I was glad to have found because it seemed at that point in the book that Claiborne was finally arriving at the conclusion I was hoping he might arrive at. The end of the ensuing conversation was an attempt (I believe) on my part to explain the philosophy of life as a journey toward a realistically unreachable destination. That destination is unreachable because it is the ideals we live by but cannot achieve, the absolute truths, if you will. Love in its purest form, is an absolute truth. It is an idea we have, but in practice, fall far from its achievement.

I hope Parker doesn’t begin to perceive himself as my nemesis, as he is known for his ninja-ness and may smite me with a sneak attack from the bushes. As Parker and I often arrive at the same conclusions by way of different abstract reasoning, we often don’t realize the similarities in our arguments. I am well known for starting sentences with “In Jesus for President, …” while Parker is increasingly finding it hard to resist the introduction of “C.S. Lewis says…”

We may also endorse differing approaches to the conclusions we share but this is exactly my point, and I cannot help but exclaim this in our friendly, yet heated, conversations. “Thats exactly the point!” I remember saying on at least one occasion. 

Love as Jesus described it and offered as an example for is an ideal. Its perfection is an achievement that humanity cannot and will not achieve in this world. Yet it is what drives us and what connects us both to each other and to God. If that ideal is not achievable, as the journey/destination theory suggests, the destination itself is not the purpose in this existence we currently find ourselves in. It is the journey that matters most. It is our investment of talents for something good and better and pleasing to the master. 

To get away from the abstract idea, we must explore it. We must find roadmaps in our lives that give substance to the journey to finding perfect Love. In roundabout ways, this is the what my mind is consumed by and the reason I blog is to share my findings in this journey with those who care to listen.

This is the journey of discovering Love.

So I continue to inwardly express dissatisfaction with my efforts to share more concrete findings of Love instead of offering little more than instances of dis-love. With this renewal of effort I hope to offer more often the positive definitions I’ve explored, or at least more directly refer to this conversation (with myself and whoever would like to listen in) about Love.