In All About Love bell hooks writes about right ways and wrong ways to consider love:
“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.”
Hooks goes on to explain that love, properly understood, is not a feeling. Love is an action. Too often, hooks proposes, we focus on the notion of “falling in love” rather than “choosing to love.” We wrongly emphasize, she says, “perfect passion” instead of “perfect love.” In short, hooks offers a prophetic word against the way we live as if love is something that chances upon us rather than something that is cultivated by us.
In Scripture, John, the Apostle of Love, puts it this way:
“My children, our love should not be only words and talk. No, our love must be real. We must show our love by the things we do.” (1 Jn. 3:18 ERV).
Our Christian faith does not simply call us to fall in love. It calls us to function with love. Love is a choice we take. It is a motion we make. Every. Single. Day. Love is not a happenstance. It is a harvest. Love is the fruit of a life of labor.
Longstanding crises in our country regarding racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice and oppression reveal that we are struggling with this concept in our relationships with other humans. Even followers of Christ are choosing not to love, in the most basic of ways, by questioning the experiences of victims of racism, standing by the side of sexual abusers, and treating children and others in dehumanizing ways. We are not investing in the effort required to cultivate human love.
Longstanding crises in our churches reveal that we are also struggling with this concept in our relationship with God. We’ve managed to create churches as institutions with large budgets, spacious buildings, influential boards, and regular baptisms. Meanwhile clergy are greying, high profile pastors are ending their lives, and churches are struggling to connect with younger generations. We serve God. We fear God. We obey God (sort of). But we’re not known as people who simply love God. We’re rarely identified as those who do almost anything to express and expand love of God. We labor tirelesslessly for God, but we do not labor passionately for God. We focus on pleasing God but not on pursuing God.
Loving God is an effort, not simply an emotion. Loving God is a decision that must be determined by us, not merely a desire that may drive us. Loving God is the product of purposeful practices. These are the habits we must return to if we hope to experience life on earth as God intended life to be.
This wisdom is reflected in the words St. Ignatius of Loyola used to describe the final step in his Spiritual Exercises. These exercises, done in isolation over a thirty day retreat of silence, or in community over a nine month period, culminated in what Ignatius called “Contemplation to Gain the Love of God.” This wasn’t a practice designed to gain God’s love for us. His love has already, abundantly, been freely given. Instead, this is a practice aimed at attaining our love for God. Ignatius believed that loving God doesn’t just happen. It is the fruit of an intentional way of living fueled by an intentional set of behaviors. It is something we gain through predetermined practices.
Those practices are summarized by Ignatius in three ways in his “Contemplation to Gain the Love of God.” All three practices are an attempt to joyfully reflect on the blessings of God, which Ignatius says in his introduction to the contemplation are like rays emanating from the sun and like rivers flowing from a spring. We become lovers of God as we engage regularly in these three behaviors (I’ve taken the liberty to reword them):
- Ponder and praise the presents of God.
- Ponder and praise the presence of God.
- Ponder and praise the plan of God.
Here’s how to practice the “Contemplation to Gain the Love of God.” First, sit in a quiet and calm space. Or take a long walk in a still place. Open a journal, or at least your mind. For several moments list, physically or mentally, all of the presents of God. “Bring to memory,” Ignatius writes, “the benefits received, of creation, redemption, and particular gifts, pondering with much feeling how much God our Lord has done…” In other words, count your many blessings. Rehearse as many of the gifts of God as you can. Include the most comprehensive, like the gifts of sunrises and stars and Grand Canyons and Grand Tetons. Include the most concrete, like your favorite shirt, cheese enchiladas, the smell of freshly cut lawns, and the softness of your bed. We grow in our love of God as we regularly rehearse all we have received by his hand. List as many as you can. Then wait in silence. And then list all the rest that come to mind. Praise God for these presents. This is what we find Paul doing when he writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in heaven.” (Eph. 1:3 ERV). We grow in loving God as we ponder and praise the presents of God.
Second, in this calm and quiet space, now begin to list the many manifestations of the presence of God in your life and your world. Include the ways you see God through what he has created. Also ponder the way in which God is present within you, as Ignatius writes, “making a temple of [you], being created to the likeness and image of His Divine Majesty.” Consider how God is present in every human being, each being made in his image. You might think of specific people who are often oppressed or ignored, yet in whom God is present because they too bear the image of God.
You may be living in a circumstance in which it’s hard to tell where God is, a state of “disenchantment.” But if you will wait in this stillness long enough, you will begin to recognize, at least in small yet significant ways, how God has been present with you and with those you care about. We grow in our love for God by becoming awakened to the many ways in which he not only has granted presents to us but the many ways in which he is present with us. This is us practicing what David does when he confesses, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…” (Ps. 23:4 ESV) We develop a deeper love for God as we discern more and more that he never leaves us, always cleaves to us, and forever proceeds with us.
Third, in this still space, begin to describe how you notice or at least hold hope in the plans of God. God not only supplies us. He not only stands with us. God is also laboring here and now, unfolding his ultimate plan for humans and for his handiwork. “Consider,” Ignatius urges, “how God works and labors for [us] in all things created on the face of the earth.” What we see is not all that was meant to be. God has a cosmic kingdom plan in play. All things broken will be mended. All things wrong will be righted. All things crooked will be straightened. We grow in our love for God as we live daily in the hope that comes by steadfastly trusting in the plan of God even in the midst of the pain of the world. This is the confession of Paul, “we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Rom. 8:28 The Message). Write or rehearse some of the ways you see God’s work in the world, some of the ways you sense his plan unfolding, even if it’s slow or small.
This spiritual practice of “Contemplation to Gain the Love of God” will mature you as a lover of God, and, ultimately, as a lover of all whom he has made.
