This was a fascinating reflection. What stood out to me is the idea that love is not merely an emotion or a moral ideal, but something that transforms through participation. The deepest expressions of love seem to involve voluntarily carrying what could have been avoided for the sake of another's flourishing. Whether understood theologically or psychologically, that kind of love has the power to interrupt cycles of fear, resentment, and separation. Thank you for such a thoughtful piece.
"... love changes the field in which suffering is held." This is very timely for me. Thank you for using your synthesizing skills in a clear, beautiful way.
"Real substituted love cannot be forced because love cannot be forced. It rises freely from the heart’s recognition that the other is not finally separate from oneself."
Right. Agreed. And yet, then, it is no longer "substituted love. It is just unadulterated love. The real deal, the real thing, the thing that really matters about love. It's not a substitute. It's just plain old love.
Love is the grace to stay present with the beloved as they suffer, it is such a privilege to be invited into the deep place of their heart. Sitting with and assisting someone in hospice care, taking a shift, giving a caretaker an afternoon to sleep or take a walk, someone who has lost a child, …. All for the sake of the beloved. This is God’s other centered Love, no agendas, Love.
Thank you for the depth of this, as well as your humor!
I’m kinda singing the Joni Mitchell song this morning “I’ve looked at love from both sides now, (like there’s only two), I really don’t know love at all”.
Some days I don’t even know what love is - I couldn’t define it if my life depended on it. So many facets to love and voices from every direction “you’re doing it right, you’re doing it wrong, you’re not doing it at all, you’ve always done it, you’ve never done it . . .”
My mind is tired of trying to figure it out, my heart is willing but my body is pooped. I’m more exhausted this morning than when I went to bed. Facing a list as long as my arm today of what I should do, need to do, have to do, wish I could do (but won’t) and so much I don’t want to do but I will get up and do it anyway. Is that love? I don’t even know anymore. Does it matter?
I’ll send my mind on vacation, follow my heart, ignore my aches and pains, give myself permission to laugh a little and cry a little and just keep going and at the end of the day hope, no, actually know, Love(God) will make up all the difference.
Not exactly philosophical or eloquent but it’s the best I can do. 🙏
I'd be happy to call myself Chirstian in "un-branded" Christianity. Something very odd has happened, and religions have become "brands." WTF? How did love come to become a brand?
Love is among the most fully natural things beings can do with one another, perhaps especially human beings. Natural not in contrast with "supernatural". But just grounded real; real relatedness. Real kindness; real compassion; real care.... It's not fancy or "extra". It's what humans do when we're not stuffing our heads in our butts, LOL.
Yes. “Un-branded Christianity” may be the only kind I can still recognize without squinting.
Love never needed a logo, a membership tier, or a denominational marketing department. It is the native language of the heart before fear hires lawyers and starts building fences.
When humans stop auditioning for holiness and simply become present, kind, merciful, and real with one another, the Gospel suddenly looks suspiciously obvious.
Which is probably why religion keeps trying to complicate it.
"Someone takes the blame that will cost them less than it would cost the fragile person beside them. Someone quietly pays the bill, makes the call, takes the hit, holds the room, shields the child, stays awake."
What you're describing is more loving and compassionate than "someone takes the blame", I strongly suspect. I suppose that depends on what we take "blame" to mean. A blameless person can give of themselves even if they are not to "blame". It may serve us well to wonder about the words we choose to convey our thoughts and perceptions.
Good Teacher, When there is conscious love between two souls, & one shares the burden of the other, how is it a “substitution”? Do you mean the love one gives is “substituted” for part of the other’s burden?
btw I like the idea of “abler soul,” & also the idea that love requires freedom & can do astonishing things — the “power of love!”
I apologize. I realized this morning that I misunderstood what you meant by "take the blame," and my subsequent response was generated from within that misunderstanding, which must have been confusing for you.
I listened to this rather than read it to give my eye a break, which my eye appreciated so much, especially because tears it would have shed were kept momentarily & soothed the pain so gently. Every ounce resonated, every description a movie made flesh on my closed eyelids - and the last paragraph-
When I had those experiences i knew i couldn’t survive (but lived), knew I couldn’t bear (but did), it proved to me miracles existed. those were when i survived suffering i knew i couldn’t, with my heart not breaking apart with angst or cracking open with torment but glueing itself together with tender love that I have only ever felt before in peaceful, serene times, when I felt wrapped in safety & protected & held by God, no matter what happened. God did enter my suffering, did bear it, and surely dosed my heart with tenderness or I would not have learned that whenever I am suffering, to remind myself that surviving it is possible IF I remember not to blindly grab for God to rescue me but instead to wrap myself in God’s protection with love & very very tenderly.
This feels deeply true.
Love is not proven by explaining suffering from a safe distance. Love crosses the distance.
It sits beside the bed. It keeps vigil. It carries what it did not cause. It refuses to let the beloved disappear inside the burden.
From where I sit, that is the difference between mercy and theory.
Theory says, “Here is why you are suffering.”
Mercy says, “You will not carry this alone.”
This was a fascinating reflection. What stood out to me is the idea that love is not merely an emotion or a moral ideal, but something that transforms through participation. The deepest expressions of love seem to involve voluntarily carrying what could have been avoided for the sake of another's flourishing. Whether understood theologically or psychologically, that kind of love has the power to interrupt cycles of fear, resentment, and separation. Thank you for such a thoughtful piece.
Beautiful!
"... love changes the field in which suffering is held." This is very timely for me. Thank you for using your synthesizing skills in a clear, beautiful way.
Thank you for sharing this beautifully written truth.
"Real substituted love cannot be forced because love cannot be forced. It rises freely from the heart’s recognition that the other is not finally separate from oneself."
Right. Agreed. And yet, then, it is no longer "substituted love. It is just unadulterated love. The real deal, the real thing, the thing that really matters about love. It's not a substitute. It's just plain old love.
Love is the grace to stay present with the beloved as they suffer, it is such a privilege to be invited into the deep place of their heart. Sitting with and assisting someone in hospice care, taking a shift, giving a caretaker an afternoon to sleep or take a walk, someone who has lost a child, …. All for the sake of the beloved. This is God’s other centered Love, no agendas, Love.
Thank you for the depth of this, as well as your humor!
I’m kinda singing the Joni Mitchell song this morning “I’ve looked at love from both sides now, (like there’s only two), I really don’t know love at all”.
Some days I don’t even know what love is - I couldn’t define it if my life depended on it. So many facets to love and voices from every direction “you’re doing it right, you’re doing it wrong, you’re not doing it at all, you’ve always done it, you’ve never done it . . .”
My mind is tired of trying to figure it out, my heart is willing but my body is pooped. I’m more exhausted this morning than when I went to bed. Facing a list as long as my arm today of what I should do, need to do, have to do, wish I could do (but won’t) and so much I don’t want to do but I will get up and do it anyway. Is that love? I don’t even know anymore. Does it matter?
I’ll send my mind on vacation, follow my heart, ignore my aches and pains, give myself permission to laugh a little and cry a little and just keep going and at the end of the day hope, no, actually know, Love(God) will make up all the difference.
Not exactly philosophical or eloquent but it’s the best I can do. 🙏
I'd be happy to call myself Chirstian in "un-branded" Christianity. Something very odd has happened, and religions have become "brands." WTF? How did love come to become a brand?
Love is among the most fully natural things beings can do with one another, perhaps especially human beings. Natural not in contrast with "supernatural". But just grounded real; real relatedness. Real kindness; real compassion; real care.... It's not fancy or "extra". It's what humans do when we're not stuffing our heads in our butts, LOL.
Yes. “Un-branded Christianity” may be the only kind I can still recognize without squinting.
Love never needed a logo, a membership tier, or a denominational marketing department. It is the native language of the heart before fear hires lawyers and starts building fences.
When humans stop auditioning for holiness and simply become present, kind, merciful, and real with one another, the Gospel suddenly looks suspiciously obvious.
Which is probably why religion keeps trying to complicate it.
"Someone takes the blame that will cost them less than it would cost the fragile person beside them. Someone quietly pays the bill, makes the call, takes the hit, holds the room, shields the child, stays awake."
What you're describing is more loving and compassionate than "someone takes the blame", I strongly suspect. I suppose that depends on what we take "blame" to mean. A blameless person can give of themselves even if they are not to "blame". It may serve us well to wonder about the words we choose to convey our thoughts and perceptions.
Good Teacher, When there is conscious love between two souls, & one shares the burden of the other, how is it a “substitution”? Do you mean the love one gives is “substituted” for part of the other’s burden?
btw I like the idea of “abler soul,” & also the idea that love requires freedom & can do astonishing things — the “power of love!”
VMB -
I apologize. I realized this morning that I misunderstood what you meant by "take the blame," and my subsequent response was generated from within that misunderstanding, which must have been confusing for you.
I listened to this rather than read it to give my eye a break, which my eye appreciated so much, especially because tears it would have shed were kept momentarily & soothed the pain so gently. Every ounce resonated, every description a movie made flesh on my closed eyelids - and the last paragraph-
When I had those experiences i knew i couldn’t survive (but lived), knew I couldn’t bear (but did), it proved to me miracles existed. those were when i survived suffering i knew i couldn’t, with my heart not breaking apart with angst or cracking open with torment but glueing itself together with tender love that I have only ever felt before in peaceful, serene times, when I felt wrapped in safety & protected & held by God, no matter what happened. God did enter my suffering, did bear it, and surely dosed my heart with tenderness or I would not have learned that whenever I am suffering, to remind myself that surviving it is possible IF I remember not to blindly grab for God to rescue me but instead to wrap myself in God’s protection with love & very very tenderly.
"When love is free, it can do astonishing things."
If we can free our love, I believe this interpenetratation of others burdens can be powerful.