Sacred and profane Love

"Till We Have Faces" - C.S. Lewis novel
"Between Man and Man" - by Martin Buber

What is love? You are perhaps aware that the ancient Greeks hand a number of words for 'love', ranging from eros to agape, from selfish, erotic love to unselfish, giving love. Dionysus versus the Crucified. In between them were such loves as brotherly love, love of country etc.

"Till We Have Faces" deals directly with the difference between two kinds of love - sacred and profane, in the form of a story - a quite wonderful story - of two sisters, idolatry, lust, sacrifice, and the supernatural; the setting is a pagan country at an undetermined time in history. Lewis's understanding of idolatry and paganism is spot on, and his analysis of love - well, I'm out of my depth here, but I understand it more as I try to develop the 'taste for the other."

Buber's work deals more with the subject "What is Man" rather than 'love', but his analysis and diagnosis of the (caution: over-used term alert!) 'human condition' is unparalleled. He also lived out, in a distinctive way, the 'taste for the other' as related by many witnesses.

"The taste for the Other" - the willingness and the desire to stop all pretending and pretentiousness, to drop selfishness and neediness and vanity and instead seek the good of others - by imaginatively and diligently trying to experience the world as they do.

Marriage, of course, gives us a perfect opportunity to practice this. It came to me recently that married men - or those contemplating marriage - only need one bible verse to last them a lifetime: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, by giving His life for it."
It's an easy verse to read; who could disagree with a command to love your wife? She's pretty, has a sense of humor, doesn't nag, an accomplished and eager lover, etc.

Recognizing and delighting in those things is good; is it the same as 'giving your life' for her? We husbands are pretty good at being passive enough to keep the the relationship afloat; NOT so good at proactively putting ourselves in our wife's place and really seeing things as she does. And not just our wives, and not just for husbands: the 'taste for the other' is, according to those much better than myself, the very essence of Heaven as we practice it with others as well.

You should read the books, I chose them to appeal to different tastes. I'm a novice, these authors can touch you and lift you higher.

My love goes out to K.J., a young woman in the Rogue Valley who has her own valley she is walking through, and it's kinda rough, and it has to do with what I've written today.