Love one another as I have loved you
I'm not sure when my definition began to crystalize and then change, but it was somewhere around high school. I'm fortunate to have two very loving parents and four older sisters who have always told they loved me. I've never doubted I am loved by my family. For that I am grateful. I have heard love preached about in the Episcopal church my whole life. Love has always been part of my understanding of God (one of my favorite hymns is still "God is Love.") In my teenage years that sense of God's love was definitely more closely related to the Greek word for love "Eros." Eros is the creative, generative, exciting love of a new relationship. It is also the love of the artist for the art. Love is the dancer around the fire, and the excitement of a surfer paddling out on a good day. It feels good, it gets creative juices going, but it comes and it goes. It is fleeting. When two people feel they are not "in love" anymore, Eros has moved on ...