Love one another as I have loved you

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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 for a time.  
The love I focus on most now when I think of God is (in Greek) Agape. Agape is an abiding, consistent, supportive, empowering love. It does not come and go, it grows. It is intentional. A friend of mine likes to call Agape "the love that lets be." That is, Agape love lets you be who you were truly created to be, not who I expect you to be. Agape love in a relationship is empower, and transformative. This is the love most often spoken of by Jesus in the New Testament, and is often referred to as sacrificial love. When I love with Agape love, it means I am engaging in supporting you to be who God has made you to be. It doesn't mean I will help you destroy your life in an unhealthy enabling sense. Sometimes Agape requires saying "no" and setting healthy boundaries. Agape love, in my understanding, trusts that God created you to become the one unique person you can be, and not any other person. I want to support you on that journey, and I'd like you to support me as I continue to become James. 
That's a long lead in to say I love you. I want you to know that I do love you, and it's because Jesus taught me to love you (actually commanded me, us.) He said love (Agape) one another as I have loved you. 
This Lent (March 6-April 20) I am not giving anything up. I'm just going to practice love. Some Eros, I am a musician after all, but mostly Agape. I want you to become who God has made you to be free from any oppressive expectations that may have been heaped on you. The same goes for my church Trinity....I trust God is helping us become who God created this church to be. And Port Aransas, emerging from this storm, remembering our identity. I invite you to try to this practice, too. Love on another, as Christ loved (Agape) us. 

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