The Most Elusive Word
We say it constantly and mean something different almost every time.
I love you. I love this song. I love this pizza. I love these shoes. I love God.
The word never changes it’s shape, but what it’s asked to hold does — infatuation, loyalty, preference, hunger, awe. Somewhere along the way “love” stopped being a word and became a container: large enough for everything, specific enough for almost nothing.
As spiritual directors, we are not sure there is a right or wrong definition of love, but one of our favorites comes from M. Scott Peck: “Love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” That lands for us. It implies will, choice, and the intention towards spiritual health.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, 16 th century mystic and author of The Spiritual Exercises, said “Love consists in sharing what one has and what one is with those one loves.” Again, this implies action, but also tender vulnerability. Then there are the Greek words for love: Eros is passionate/romantic love, Philia is affectionate/loyal love between friends, Storge is natural, familial affection, Agape is selfless/ unconditional love that serves, and Philautia is self-love, which is also split further into self-respect or vanity. In Hebrew we hear Ahava raba, which is overflowing, intense feeling, and Ahavat olam, an abiding, enduring love. Chesed is loving kindness, Rachamim is compassionate, merciful love, and Dvekut is a cleaving love. There are more!
Maybe the reason “love” resists a single definition is that it was never meant to hold one. Every tradition we looked at eventually split it apart — into feeling and will, into abundance and abiding, into what moves us and what we choose anyway. Perhaps that’s the invitation — not to settle on one definition, but to notice which kind of love is being asked of us in this season. Sometimes we’re called to the overflow. Sometimes we’re called to the choosing, again, on the ordinary days.
When you think of the word love, what feels big, present, undeniable to you?
