Juggling and a Mixed Bag of Love

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.

Life is a mixed bag.  I have never run across anything that was genuinely pure.  We imagine purity, often based on a good feeling, but just about everything we deem pure has something else in it that may be a necessary element.

When I think of my experiences in Campus Crusade for Christ, I am reminded of the good and bad in everything.

Campus Crusade for Christ certainly emphasized purity:  pure acts, pure thoughts, pure motives, the pure Word of God devoid of any error.  

It was an impossible standard that created guilt, and guilt became the weapon staff members could use to keep others from moving onward.

For me, Campus Crusade for Christ became oppressive, especially when I actually began reading the Bible and theology.  Once a person actually reads the Bible the idea of a pure Word of God written by men, maybe one or two women, seems silly.  

And once a person in Campus Crusade for Christ begins to voice that discovery, guilt strikes back in the form of insinuations, accusations, outright reproaches, and death wishes ensue.

Death wishes such as, “God is going to kill you or maim you if you keep thinking… like you are thinking.”

Having said that, however, Campus Crusade for Christ taught me so many things my church never taught.  

Campus Crusade for Christ taught me about the ideology of God's love.

For instance, I never knew there were two Greek words for "love" in the Christian Bible.

Incidentally, there is another famous Greek word for love, a fun word, the word eros.  It is not used in the Christian Bible.  

Eros means erotic love.  The early church had nothing to say about that.  And why would they?  Most of the writers believed the world was about to end any second. 

Eros is for a world that goes on and on and on.

Back to the two Greek words in the Christian Bible:  there is phileo or sibling love. The person who first taught that to me mentioned Philadelphia as an example.  It is the City of Brotherly Love.

Then, there's agapao.  It is the main word used for love when it describes our God’s love for us and our love for God and people.  

It is unconditional love.  It is not felt.  It is love without exception and despite reasons not to love. 

Agapao is practiced.  It is a principle or attitude towards others that must be cultivated and attempted even after numerous failures.  

Agapao is like juggling.  Anyone who has ever learned how to juggle knows it is impossible not to drop the balls, bowling pins, hacky sacks, or lemons that one attempts to toss in the air from hand to hand.  

Agapao is love that is bound to flop, but we keep tossing it from our open hands into the heart of the world and back again.

It is how our God of love loves us, and how we are empowered by practice and design to love God, our neighbors, and our enemies.  

Agapao is the only true Christian way of being in the world.  It is the good news that Jesus incarnated.

I learned of agapao from Campus Crusade for Christ.  Imagine that. 

And I am learning how to agapao through life by the everlasting example of Jesus and our God of love even when I drop the ball.

Blessings...