Ways of Loving

By Daniel Kreller

"What is love?" was the most frequently searched question on Google in 2014. In an attempt to answer that question I developed a chart entitled "Ways of Loving." Whenever I encountered an author that tried to define just what love is I added his definition to the chart. These authors are theologians, philosophers, psychologists, or psychiatrists. I also included the teaching of Jesus known as his "Golden Rule." I developed the chart as a tool to use with the people I counsel as a Christian pastor who are seeking to better understand what love is and how they can better give and receive love. The book is my own reflections on the chart. The book is organized following the Rabbinical notion that when God undertakes a work he does so in 4 stages - conception, creation, formation, and completion. Thus, love also evolves through those stages. I also include a section on shame, what we experience when love is interrupted, and forgiveness, how we can be restored to love. In the afterward I briefly address the question of "Why is there love?" I answer that as a Christian that believes in the Trinity of God where the three persons of God dwell in love and achieve union and communion. From the joy and peace of their mutual love they create creatures in love for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Kreller
• Release date: Sep 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370712212

Daniel Kreller

The son of a Baptist minister, I was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1977. I studied for the ministry at Princeton, General, and Union Seminaries. I served as a parish priest for 40 years. I have a particular interest in the healing ministry and the Jewish roots of Christianity. I am married and have a grown son and daughter.

Book preview

Ways of Loving

The Rev. Daniel W. Kreller

Published by Daniel W. Kreller at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Daniel W. Kreller

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chart

Preface

Conception

Creation

Formation

Completion

Shame

Forgiveness

Afterword

Cover Art

About the author

Foreword

What is love? was the most frequently searched question on Google in 2014. Since Google ranks #1 in the world in inter-net searches with over 1 billion per month it is safe to say this question is upon many people’s minds. The same question was on my mind some years ago as well. As a clergyman by profession I realized that I, and those I taught and counseled, were somewhat befuddled by love. Part of the problem is that as English speakers we have one word, love, that is supposed to service us whether we are talking about love for our beloved, or love for chocolate, and all manner of other loves. Our language is rather impoverished in that respect. Part of the problem is that in the exchange of love, the giving and receiving, what we have received didn’t always feel like love to us though the giver asserted it was. Part of the problem is that we have a working assumption that we will recognize love when we see it even if we can’t define it or describe it. No doubt there are more problems we could cite but it was these problems that inspired me to collect various definitions of love in the books I read whether from religious writers, philosophers, psychiatrists, or psychologists. If any authors were so bold as to write about love, define it, or describe what love looks like in practice, I took notice and kept a list from which I created a chart. My purpose was practical. I wanted to be able to place a tool in people’s hands with which they could answer the question what love is for them and help them understand what love might be for the others in their life. For love is not the same for everyone. We have our preferences in love and some of our failures in love are due to that plain fact. Because the chart I produced reflects my limited and eclectic reading it is not the most refined tool, but I trust it will be helpful to those who seek to answer the question, What is love? All of my citations are from males. I don’t know why that is other than to say the books that came across my purview were written by men. So, do take that into consideration.

As a clergyman in the Judeo-Christian tradition I have another motive for writing about love. Both Jews and Christians believe the character of God is best described by love. There are two primary words for love in the Hebrew Scriptures, ahab and chesed. Both are used to describe God’s love. Ahab, which when pronounced mimics the sound of the beating heart, relates to the heart’s desires. Chesed relates to the deliberate choosing of affection and loving-kindness. Ahab is used in a text like the Song of Solomon, a passionate love poem that doesn’t even mention God. This Song is included in the Hebrew Scriptures because it is read as an allegory of the love between God and Israel, or God and the individual soul. Ahab is also used in very pivotal texts that describe Yahweh’s particular love for Jacob, later named Israel (Malachi 1:2), and in the two great commandments Yahweh imposes upon Israel, their love for him (Deuteronomy 6:5) and their love for their neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). So, the texts imply just as Yahweh’s heart beats for Israel, theirs should beat for him and for their neighbor. Chesed is used more often than ahab to describe God’s love. Will is regarded as the highest attribute of God by the Rabbis, but what God chooses is love, to seek and do what is best for others. That is chesed. In the Christian Scriptures the Greek word agape is used to describe God’s love. Its meaning is similar to chesed, the deliberate choosing of loving-kindness. The Christian Scriptures are unambiguous about the nature of God being love. So the Apostle John can write, Beloved let us love one another, because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8) The ancients did not distinguish between being religious or spiritual as many do today. For them love was spiritual, from God, and religious, binding us fast, through rituals and practices, to love’s Source in God, and through God to others.

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Chart

The chart that I produced is printed below. The ways of loving an author or source describes are printed horizontally. The number references that author or source at the bottom of the chart. The numbers are not an evaluation of the sources such that source 1 should be preferred in my estimation over source 10, and so on. The numbering reflects the history of my project. I came upon some authors before others and as I came upon new sources that I felt were worthy of inclusion I added them to the chart. Some sources that were familiar to me when I began the project, like the Marriage Rite of my church and Diogenes Allen’s and Scott Peck’s writings, I realized I had overlooked and included them later. One source is not numbered, the last one, which is a quote from Jesus. I thought it best to acknowledge that stands in a category by itself. In my original I printed this chart in landscape format (included at the end of the printed editions) so I could better align the thoughts of the various authors and sources vertically to reflect their similar ideas. Since this writing conforms to e-book formats I could not replicate that. I leave it to the reader to align the columns.

As a tool I hand this to the person whom I counsel and ask them to read over the chart. I ask what ways of loving do you relate to? Then, I ask what ways don’t you relate to as much? Finally I ask what ways don’t you understand? Sometimes we get to the question of how do you think the people in your life would relate to these ways? But that is further down the road. The journey begins with knowing ourselves.

Ways of Loving

1. Attention - Acceptance - Approval - Affection - Allowing

2. Quality Time - Gifts - Affirmation - Physical Touch - Service

3. Affiliation - Friendship - Eros - Agape

4. Mirroring - Validation - Empathy

5. Interest/Excitement - Enjoyment/Joy

6. Otherness of Things - Relative Value - Absolute Value

7. Intention - Observation - Radical Self-Acceptance

8. Heart - Mind - Body - Spirit

9. The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.

10. It is good that you exist!

* "In everything do to all others as you would have them do to you"

Sources:

1. David Richo, How to Be an Adult in Relationships

2. Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages

3. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

4. Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love