In the English language, we have only one word for this complex emotion. It is applied in so many places that we often avoid using the word for fear that we will be misunderstood.
The Greeks, though, had a way to express the fact that we love different people in different ways. They defined love in four categories, with a different word for each:
- Storge is familial love. It is a strong bond of affection between people in a family unit.
- Eros is romantic love. Sweaty palms and butterflies in the stomach. This is a possessive and physical love - all of our senses are involved.
- Phileo is brotherly love, for which the American city of Philadelphia is named. This is the love we feel, or should feel, for our fellow man. It is empathy - the ability to put ourselves "in another man's shoes" - and it is appreciation - the acknowledgement of the value of the person or thing we have affection for.
- Agape is pure love. Selfless love. Love with no thought of personal gain; a conscious decision to give of yourself to another purely because you want them to be happy.
The love we feel for our friends has strong elements of storge, but is more closely related to phileo (in fact the Greek word for friend is "philos").
Yet ideally, friendship should also be agape - a friend is someone you love not for what they can do for you, or for what they are, or for what you can do for them, but simply because you can.
We tend to think of love as a give and take. But what would happen if we loved without any thought of reward or benefit to ourselves?
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.
~John 15:13, the Bible
Selfless, or agape, friendship is a humbling ideal. It is so easy to serve our own needs; to use others to fill the void within. As much as I love Jocelyn, I can admit that I have not always acted with only her good in mind.
I didn't really understand this at first. As I became a teenager, though, I began to ask why our friendship still left so much in each of us unfulfilled. Although I had a best friend, I remained shy and uncertain. As much as I loved Jocelyn, and as much as I knew she loved me, there was an assurance I was missing.
We helped each other cope with difficulties, but we still frequently failed. We overlooked each other's faults, but the faults remained. As much as we told each other, there were still things we couldn't say. I had the love of a friend, but I was still profoundly lonely.
At thirteen, I didn't believe that anyone could ever change that, but I was wrong. There was an answer.
Continue: What's the answer? How can Jesus be a permanent solution to loneliness?>> 1. 2 . 3
Copyright 2000 Women Today Magazine. Used with permission.
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