I really do believe the last line in this week’s Shi Sai. Nothing compares to love. Love is quite complex. As the song says, “It is a many splendored thing”. Love is a big deal. As I consider love, and my own personal calling to be more loving in this challenging time, I realize that the dysfunctional reality of family of ours as a “united nation” is no longer something we can hide or hide from.

There are several types of love I discovered when I did a bit of research. The ancient Greeks gave us several types of love to consider:

Eros (sexual passion or desire, considered by some to be dangerous or irrational),

Philia (deep friendship, a more highly prized type of love and also equated with a term called storge which is associated with the love parents have for their children), 

Ludus (playful love or affection between children or young love, associated with flirting and and also fun between friends, joking and dancing), 

Agape (love for everyone, the most radical love of all associated with selflessness and charity), 

Pragma (longstanding love, considered a mature love that is exemplified by long-married couples who have perfected the art of patience, tolerance and compromise) and

Philautia (self-love and compassion – Aristotle described philautia thusly: “All friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man’s feelings for himself.”)

So what does all this mean? Most importantly, what does it mean for me personally, especially when I am hurt or beset with conflict, can I still I declare in all sincerity “love overcomes hate”?

The truth is that I have the capacity for each of these types of love. If I truly believe in the power of love, deepening my understanding of each nuance, each facet, equips me to respond when I am struggling. i have the ability to grow as a person when i am willing to see where I am lacking. The Greeks have created a wonderful roadmap and I know of another too…

1 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version (ESV)

13-If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2-And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3-If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4-Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5-or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6-it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7-Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8-Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9-For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10-but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11-When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12-For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13-So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Yep, I really do believe the last line of this Shi Sai. Be kind to one another this week. Love and peace to you.

Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 4 December 2016

all woman-girls who recall
frosted roses fade
it’s where dreams are born
“You’ll do,” she thought.
I remember a flood
fallout from Faustian pacts…
Your fruits have been many but you have lost yourself and are fading as we speak
nothing compares to love

~kat