The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:21)

              In a Substack post he wrote shortly after his own wedding, writer and psychologist Adam Mastroianni (Monroeville’s own!) talked about love. He wrote that love is,

the human experience that is most discussed, but lead understood. In fact, the more you discuss it, the less you might understand it, because the real heart of it, the what-it’s-like of it, can’t be put into words, and yet that’s pretty much the main thing we try to put into words.

              The writer of 1 John was sure trying to put it into words. Adam, of course, was talking about romantic love whereas 1 John’s interest is a “love of neighbor” sort of love. It’s the kind of love that shows itself in kindness and compassion and a deep concern for others. In the span of 15 verses, starting with, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” and extending to verse 21 quoted above, 1 John uses the word “love” 28 times, by my count.

              It makes me wonder if we are any better at understanding the love of God and neighbor than we are at understanding romantic love, the kind of love as Adam says, “makes you want to write love songs and to not write love songs.”

              We can argue over a lot of things the Bible says, but one thing that seems rather clear is that the greatest commandment is this, that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. On this hangs all other commandments!

              And yet, we bully, put down, make war against, think less of, demean & diminish, HATE our brothers and sisters. We neglect those in need and reject those we deem “them.” We do anything BUT love our neighbor.

              Why is it so hard to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves?

              The writer of 1 John says that we love because God first loved us. Maybe we need to start there, with remembering that we are loved, that the Maker of heaven and earth, Creator of all, the Almighty One who has drawn the borders of time and space, that God first loved us! Once we remember God’s love, receive God’s love, recognize God’s love, then we can spend the rest of our days trying to figure out just what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

              We may never be able to fully put it into words, but maybe somewhere deep within us we will know what it means to love one another.