A is for Agape

Agape is the doctrine that God eternally gives of himself to others.

For one human being to love another:
that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work
is but preparation.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I was walking down the street yesterday and I saw a beautiful flower emerging from under a thick brush, pinned against an iron gate. Immediately I wanted to pick it, perhaps to save it or maybe I just wanted to have it, but I plucked it out of the soft earth. I held it carefully almost taking on the persona of the flower; delicate yet strong. I made it home safe and placed the flower into a glass of water for it to drink. Naturally I had to find a place in my home where the flower could be seen and assure its compliments to the interior. The antique end table next to my vintage couch was the perfect pedestal. It looked more beautiful than it did pressed against the cold iron gate moments ago. I rescued it.

Soon to watch it die.

"To soil is to modify, it is to touch. The beautiful is that which we cannot wish to change. To assume power over is to soil. To possess is to soil....To love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and that which we love."

Simone Weil

Love is absolute or no love at all. The beautiful (distance) keeps love in tension between the sensuous (empirical) and the moral (intellectual).