In Love With Love

I was just thinking about something that some of us think a lot about and others not enough. Brace yourselves, I may be a minute. Did you know there are several forms of love? Even if we don't know the proper names for them most of us can only account for two. The love between a man and a woman and the love between a mother/father and child. A family love.
Eros is the first form of love that the average person thinks of and it's simply a passion driven physical and emotional love founded upon aesthetic enjoyment. It is the stereotype of romantic love. It's the love between man and woman. It's the topic of a many song, a many book and a many motion picture. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones commonly known as chick flicks. This is the one that society insinuates we should long for and let's face it a many of us do. Who wouldn't want to share in a love where there is passion. Physical and emotional. Love that is enjoyable to both parties. Love that puts butterflies in the tummy and a Porsche in the heart. The most talented writer and director can spin you a tale that will make you believe in that. A tale. The tale that love is easy. That if two people love each other they may have a mishap or two but everything will work out perfectly for them. But we fail to realize that the telling of that tale is made up of a series of retakes, bloopers, sweat and hard work. Hardly easy and definitely not perfect.
Ludus is the love that is played as a game or sport. A conquest. Meaning it's just a series of challenges won. The Taming Of The Shrew comes to mind. This love seeks to bend another to it's will. A game of who will win. If you're thinking as I am, you're asking yourself how this can be considered as love. Well in our world it isn't but trust me when I say there are others that can totally relate and this is their perfect love. I personally can't relate but I see it in a many relationship. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones where you can't for the life of you figure out why that woman is with that man when mostly everything he does is meant to break her like a wild horse. Maybe it's the woman doing the breaking. I'm not trying to be chauvinistic. These relationships are often abusive. Emotional and sometimes physical. This love lacks respect. The thrill is in the game.
Storge is the love that is affectionate and slowly develops from friendship and is based on similarity. We know this story also. The story where friends become lovers. The story where good friends in search of Eros love realize what they were looking for was right there all the while. They discover commonalities between themselves and realize that together...they just make sense. They know each other. They tend to have seen the good, the bad and the ugly before their romantic relationship developed.
Pragma is the love that is driven by the head not the heart. It's the love that's undemonstrative. The head knows that it would be practical to love this person. It knows that someone else would think that what he/she has is not too bad by most standards. There only one problem. The heart hasn't caught up with the head. This love finds it hard to show love because it isn't heart felt. Where Eros is passionate Pragma is the opposite. It is devoid of such things. It goes through the motions.
Mania is the love that is highly volatile. It's obsessive and energized by low self-esteem. This is the deadly love. The love that kills maims and destroys. The love that is often tragically featured on the news. The love to be avoided, not embraced.
Agape is the selfless altruistic love. It's the motherly love. The spiritual love. It's the love that a mother or father has for their child. It's the love God has for us and by far the most valuable. Not valuable in a monetary sense but in a sense that it's unconditional. 1 Corinthians 4-8 says "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." Imagine if you can for a second being the recipient of that kind of love. No judgement. It's yours and you don't even deserve it. Freely given. God loves us like that. It's the only perfect love. It's the love He wants us to have for each other.
Anyone reading this can relate to one or more of these forms of love. Hopefully you don't fall into the negative categories. I've said all this to say this. Most of us long for love. You may yearn for that motherly/fatherly love. I'm here to tell you to yearn no more. God loves you. Even if you feel as if not another soul in this world does. He loves you through your imperfections, sin and shortcomings.
You may yearn for the kind we read in the romance novels and see in the movies. It's wonderful the notion that two people are so much in love that it catapults them past peril and disappointment in a couple of chapters or a couple of scenes. But the truth is love is much more than that. It takes work to maintain. No one is the same way everyday. There will be bad moods, mistakes, missteps, anger and angry words. I'm not downing love. Nor am I saying that it's impossible or unreal. Hey I read the books and see the movies too and I love the idea that two people can love each other that much that there is always a happy ending and I love all the romanticism along the way. Just be sure you're not just in love with love.