Tag: love

This land is your land, This land is my land.

I really love the word dichotomy, as a lot of things I like and believe in fall into its definition. just for housekeeping, purposes were going to insert the definition. 

Dichotomy – a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.

Today Tuesday the 3rd of November is one of those dichotomy days for me. Yes, it is the single most important day of the next four years and your vote along with the votes of millions of others in this country will have a dramatic impact on the direction that our country heads down over the next decades. Chances are half of us will go to bed ecstatic and the other half will be devastated when we lay our head down to sleep late on Tuesday night.

Conversely, Tuesday, November 3rd is just another day in your life and whatever happens, that day will have an impact on your life but it won’t completely ruin or make the rest of your life.

I’m choosing to live my life the same way I always have today, tomorrow, and the next day. I’m going to control the things I can, work hard in every aspect of my life, love everyone equally, and not late hate, fear, or greed dissuade me from loving you my fellow American.

Love, the working persons verb.

Early on in the Super Bowl you may have noticed a commercial with some weird words about love in Greek, it wasn’t very flashy or funny at all but it was a very powerful message that may have gone widely unnoticed.

The English Language is pretty amazing in a lot of regards but is confusing and completely misses the mark in a lot of ways. Words like witch and which or there and their sound the same but have different meanings, how is it possible that something as important and complex as love only gets one?

The Greeks had four separate and very distinct definitions for love and if you were paying attention in the Super Bowl you may recognize some of these…

Eros – Romantic love. This is the type of love I think most of us think of when we hear the word.

Storge – Love of your family. This is feeling of bonding that you have for your Mom, Dad and siblings.

Philia – Brotherly love. Ever wonder how Philadelphia got the nickname the city of brotherly love? This is the love that grows from friendship and camaraderie.

Agape – The fourth and greatest kind of love is a selfless, unconditional and sacrificial kind of love. This has been best explained to me by one of the motto’s of our church. Willing the good upon others and acting upon it. Thanks Father Phil you are amazing!!

So now you know at least four words in ancient Greek and maybe that side of this blog will pay off in your next round of bar room trivia. What i’m really hoping that you take away from this is that its okay to spread the love around. We’ve always needed it and maybe now its needed more then ever.

We often hand out the superficial thumbs up or the heart on our social media posts but what are we really doing to spread real love to those people in our community? It’s pretty darn easy to answer the question from the cashier at the store, “fine” how are you today? without giving it any genuine effort or really caring what the answer is. I know I’m guilty of throwing out lack luster effort plenty of times in this situation. Now I’m not suggesting the check out line is the time or place to have a 15 minute conversation about the challenges of life but greeting someone with a genuine smile and a dedication to being present and maybe sneaking in a question could make a huge difference in their day and the customers to follow.

Call to action… Love is not a sit around kind of word, you have to go out and spread it around. Here’s the good news though, it isn’t very difficult and it will make someone else feel better and you will as well. Here’s a few things we can do that take less then a minute to accomplish. Talk to a stranger, pull up a neighbors trash can, hold the door open for someone or bring your shopping cart back can spread a little love around.

I’m going to work on these for the next month or so and I challenge you to spread some love in these ways as well. Once we’ve mastered these were both moving on to bigger and better things like serving at the local homeless shelter where our new found Agape can really make a difference.