WITHOUT LOVE, I RECEIVE NOTHING.
Love never fails. WITHOUT LOVE, WE TAKE NOTHING INTO ETERNITY!

Love is the more excellent way.

How important is love? More books have been written and songs sung about

love than any other subject, yet we seem to have so little understanding.

Love seems to be the one thing we need most and have experienced least.

If love is indeed the 'more excellent way', why is it that so many people

have not even come close?

LEARNING TO LOVE is dedicated to make a difference with this problem. And to

do that we need to begin by working with some definitions. Love is very much

a part of our vocabulary, but when we use the word "love" it has so many

varied meanings and nuances. Definitions, meanings and perceptions are all

critical to our understanding and experience.

You say, "you love me", but what does that mean? We speak of "making love"

which is really just a euphamism. "Who love ya' baby?" was made popular by

Kojak, but did anyone ever get an answer to the question?

Not only do we need to come to a better understanding, we need to learn how

to experience love and see how it impacts every dimension of our lives.

As a first step in that direction, we will define and use the Greek work,

"agape", as much as possible. This will help to set apart "agape" love from

all other uses of the love words. False definitions and wrong ideas about

love have devastating consequences on life. Broken homes, broken hearts,

broken societies---our broken world---all result from broken definitions of

love. A definition alone will not cure the breakage, but without one there

is little hope.

For a start, here are a few definitions and distinctions with which we are

going to be working. The first is, ROMANCE: this is defined as a fictitious

tale of dealing not so much with everyday life as with extraordinary and

often extravagant adventures; fantasies of the imagination. (The stuff of

which romance novels depend!) This is, of course, exciting but it needs help

because it is fickle and cannot last very long by itself. Romance is

basically selfish.