This-essay is a9707061.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %LOVE COMMAND GOD NEIGHBOR VULNERABLE INTIMATE+970706 %HONEST SIN EVIL FRIEND 970706 We are commanded to love God and neighbors. Loving God is easy --- until some persons who are preoccupied with issues of control come along and tell us just how we must love God --- because they are certain that they know how we must love God, even thought they do not know us or our relationships with neighbor-friends. Loving distant neighbors is easy --- until some near neighbors who find us attractive come along, or we encounter near neighbors who are attractive to us. Then it becomes difficult to manage our degrees of vulnerability, manageability and fears-of-abuse. Loving from a distance is easy. Loving up-close-and- personal within intimate relationships is not so easy. Love leads towards intimacy and so towards vulnerability. Love does not guarantee that no mistakes will be made. Formal love is easy --- just follow the rules. True love is not so easy --- for true love entails being honest and vulnerable. How can we know who it is safe to love --- in what contexts? Not all contexts are contexts within which it is safe to be open, honest and vulnerable. Where is it safe to love? When is it safe to love? The commandments do not say! What about when mistakes are made and Love makes us look like fools; or even makes us look evil? How are we to love those neighbors who are grimly determined to control us; or to judge and condemn us when they cannot control us? (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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