What exactly is love? It has been said that God is love but I’m not sure our culture knows what love really is. It seems to me that we use the word love most often to represent desire or a sense of craving something or someone. I say “I love chocolate” or “I loved that movie last night” or even “I love my wife” only because those things satisfy me and bring me joy. I think that most of those cases and even in the case of love for people we really mean that we desire or crave them and we in some way are benefited by having them around and/or in our presence. There isn't anything wrong with that, but is it really a good goal? Maybe the problem with marriages today is that people are trying to “crave” each other but if you think about it, craving someone is the most selfish thing a person could do. I don’t think that when Jesus said to love your neighbor he meant to value his friendship because he will loan you a power tool from time to time. Did Jesus mean that we should find joy in our neighbors or that we should bring them joy?

What if the idea of love that Jesus had was something different than “desire” and his understanding of love just doesn’t translate to our language and worldview? What if there was actually some other emotional experience or a higher level of consciousness and sensitivity that he had in mind and we missed the point because we don’t have the right words in our vocabulary? What if we haphazardly translated the most important word in all of his teaching with the same word we use to describe how we feel about a candy bar or a pretty girl?

I think that my concept of faith in the past had been as a way to change my priorities so that I would start to desire the right things instead of desiring the wrong things. That sounds like a good idea, but it is fundamentally flawed because it is still centered around desire and as soon as desire is quenched then the compassion and love will fade. On the other hand if we are showing compassion only because we are trying to please and obey God then that also is wrong motivation. These efforts will be seen as fake rather than truely based on compassion for the ones we serve. The real goal of faith is to completely change our understanding of love so that we no longer desire anything or anyone but have compassion for everyone regardless of the benefit to us or our "desire" to please God. I think that is what Paul means by dying to our “self”. This is how Buddhists describe correct motivation for seeking transformation. It must be done for the benefit of others not for ourselves.

Since our language of love is so mixed with the concepts of desire and craving, maybe we need a new word to translate what Jesus meant. Just for kicks, lets say the word for this new super emotion and state of consciousness and sensitivity is called “fred” (pick your own creative word if you don’t like mine!). So I could say to someone “I fred you” and by that I would mean that I have compassion for you, I completely sympathize with your needs, I seek to bring you joy and fulfillment, and I want to support you and nourish you regardless of the benefit to me and regardless of the effects of the rewards I might receive from God. Relationships based on "fred" will last long after desire fades.

Maybe fred is all we need?