Is it a whisper on the wind...

I just started to work through Kierkegaard's Works of Love the other day. It is one of his 'devotional' works that is meant to be read through slowly, digested, and the impact comes through a change of action and being for the reader. He is big on making a difference in life and not just thought - those crazy existentialists... Being a dutiful Kierkegaard reader, I am working on the reflections some. And you being a dutiful blog reader have to put up with them, ha.

Anyways, the book is titled as such because for him, love is something that is lived and does things. To him, love (whether in marriage, family, friends, or for the 'neighbor') only has significance when it is defined by the denial of the self and the elevation of the other. This is a challenge for us because so often selfishness, bitterness, pity, guilt, and so many other negative emotions sneak in and distort what our relationship are really meant to be. Because this is the case, it is as if the ability to really love, which is a 'doing' and not a 'state,' requires first a constant change of identity and who we are. That is, it is not possible for us to really love in our broken state, but we must have this stripped away through repentance and receive identity anew through forgiveness. This interaction with God is not merely like a question asked of God (will you forgive?) and an answer given by God (yes, always...), but more like a life lived. Repentance (the seeking forgiveness) is a mode of life, a way of being. In this mode of life, the person that we are is stripped away in a literal way, and in forgiveness a new identity is provided in a literal way. In this fashion, taking up the identity of Christ provided by God through forgiveness is itself an act of God's love. Kierkegaard says, "as the still waters begin obscurely in the deep spring, so a man's love mysteriously begins in God's love."

It seems odd at first to think of it, but there is a place for claims in love just like there are claims of ownership on property. Because of the fact that love is a work that flows from us, the other has a claim upon the expression of the love that we feel. This expression of love in words, laugher, tears, or whatever form it may take is not our possession, but the possession of the other. In being moved by love we are also reminded of our connection to other people. Whether we express the love in action, words, deeds or any other way as we ought, or repress the expression of the love, we are in that moment forced to be conscious of our belonging to the other person. While many times people will do things for others or volunteer in the community for non-selfless reasons, the impetus for this is found in the being forced to awareness of our belonging to the other and our duty to them. We never have any claims on the other in love, but to them owe endless self denial shown through the works of love.

-- "Your friend, your beloved, your child, or whoever is the object of your love, has a claim upon its expression also in words when it really moves you inwardly. The emotion is not your possession but the other's. The expression of it is his due, since in the emotion you belong to him who moves you and makes you conscious of belonging to him." --