ONTOLOGICAL LOVE

This might be something rough, unfinished and unclean but I think it has to do with a perspective of - This morning I was sitting over there by the table working and Barbara asked, "Now what do you mean by ontological love?" Your whole insides just run out under the table. That is a task of this two weeks, to find out what do you mean by ontological love. But there are probably some things you could say in terms of perspective if nothing else and maybe begin to get a feel for issues that make this important again. And I want to try to lay out a few theses that don't have directly anything to do with what you're writing now, but maybe it does and maybe it will generate some stew.

First point would be that love as Ontological Love is a reality as objective as gravity and electricity. Point number one - Love, if we're going to talk about love as Ontological Love as we're saying. It's as objective a reality as gravity itself, gravity or electricity. They are just there. I was thinking of some implications of that. If that be so, then this son, What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love" is a lie or is ridiculous, one or the other. It's almost like a pious lie promulgated by the devil himself and anybody who believes it is going to hell to burn forever. You would almost want to say it that strongly because what it means is that if love is a reality as objective as gravity to sin and believe what the world needs most is gravity sweet gravity, it's ridiculous. If you go around trying to generate gravity, you are putting yourself in an impossible situation. In that sense, the notion that love is ontological is something that you and I have to generate more of, is off target. That's point number one.

Second point: Loving the world is something that is being done to us. Elaboration, like it or not, choose it or not, know it or not, life itself is piteously and relentlessly making your life and my life one of radical, total, unconditional love for the world. Try that again. Okay. Now this doesn't make sense yet either, but the point being that life itself, well, loving the world is being done unto us or that my life and your life, whether we like it or not, know it or not, or have decided or not, is being made a life of love for the world. Using the gravity analogy again, it's almost like whether we know it or not or like it or not or choose it or not, gravity is operative in our life. It affects us. We're a part of it. Something like that. Now there's something freeing about that because it means that you and I don't have to be doing anything extra. It means that what we're doing is making us conscious of what is real and what's going on. That's the point there. Now that doesn't make any sense yet, but I want to develop it in three steps that get at the overall rationale of that triangle.

The first one would be that a human being's life has three primary aspects and abstract. One has to do with relation to individuals. One has to do with the relationship to the mystery or the depth of the reality itself or whatever category you want to talk about that. Another way to come into that same rationality is that this has to do with saying words, this has to do with doing deeds, and this has to do with being style. And there's no content on that. It doesn't say anything about the type of style or the type of deeds or relationships or anything else. It just says that's part of it. Or that this has to do with knowing and this has to do with doing and this has to do with being. And that's a dynamic which simply exists everywhere there's human life and the important thing is that's the dynamic that moves the social process. You know those big social process triangles. If you didn't have human beings knowing their knows and doing their do's and being their be's, you wouldn't have a society to be processing. So there's a sense in which this whole dynamic of human life is behind or underneath the prime mover of the social process. Okay. That's reasonably clear. Now, what you might mean by love would be that unreduced form of this dynamic which keeps society from going out of being. That's to say, love is the authentic knowing ones knows, doing ones do's, being one's be's, without which society would probably go out of being. That means that the phrase, "Love makes the world go round," is a true statement, angelic, sent by the Lord himself and anybody who believes it is in heaven. That's an exaggeration but Love All you have to do is look at the world and see whether it's still going around and if the answer is Yes, then that's your primary evidence that love, or authentic knowing doing and being, is operative in history. So we are talking about something that is real and there, and the evidence of which is there is a reality to be there. If we are talking in the writing about ontological love, we're saying it has several identifiable dynamics or parts of this one swirl of the human activity. One is witnessing. One is Justice. One has to do with presencing. Those parts are RS-I, LENS, Popular Preaching, Local Church, Primal Community, Social Demonstration, Religious, Guru and Guildsman. What we are suggesting is that these are part of that dynamic that's just part of history itself, without which the world would quit turning and we'd all fall into the sun or something. That's what's at stake when you talk about ontological love.

It might be that you could talk about this pole of it, if you take that rationality serious that witnessing love is that unreduced relationship to individuals, saying of words, knowing one's knows which occurs in the arena of the personal, social, and is intensification of personal and social. This whole business of witnessing love is about authentic saying, knowing and relating to individuals that takes place in the social, the personal, and the whatever. it is the coming together of the personal and the social. That rough.

The other point when you talk about ontological love is, we participate in it, like it or not. Maybe I can spell this out, very rough. We've heard it said a hundred thousand times that without personal relationships, one's style is stupid. You know the Charlie Brown cartoon: I love humanity, I love mankind. It's people I can't stand. We laugh at that and nod and find ourselves playing that role often. But then life comes along and tricks us and a recluse, like William Faulkner who could not stand people, has done more wording to individuals to bring them into an authentic relationship with life, particularly in the south of the United States, he is better than anyone I know. Life takes that recluse who tried to cut off his personal relationships and just spun that into a tremendous impact on persons, on individuals. Trick number one.

Trick number two. This is fun. You can come up with better examples. Without your being behind your words, your words are empty, right? That's the platitude. An example is easy. You kids can tell when you tell them something, whether you've got your being behind it or not. It's not tone of voice. It's not volume. But a kid can tell whether you've got your being into what you're telling them and will act accordingly. That makes us think, we always have to be sincere and have our being behind every time we open our mouth. Then life comes along and tricks us in the sense that when we stand up as teachers or parents and make a statement, even without our being behind it, we are communicating that the statement is more important than our personal feelings on the matter. Life tricks us into doing love, often without knowledge or consent.

Trick number three. We commonly say that without action, one's style has no impact. I have long berated the ascetics as social cop-outs, empty of any influence on or responsibility for society. Then life plays another one of its tricks. The ascetic becomes the vanguard of the future. This was especially true in the early days of the church, when the cloistered orders were literally the saviours of civilization.

You can go on with this in the other interrelationships of the triangle. It's true, isn't it, that without one's being in his action, it is sheer hypocrisy? Insincerity. One has to deal seriously with the depths in order to make effective change. That's been one of my personal criticism of the liberals - thoughtless, beingless activism. But then life plays another trick: It's been the burned-out activists of our own time who have pushed this culture into a deep concern with the spiritual dimensions of life. The current sensitivity to the spirit would probably never have occurred without the collapse of activism.

The same dynamic holds true in the relationship between the knowing and the doing poles. We all know that without deeds to back them up, one's words are empty. The popular phrase is, "What you do speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say." But then there comes the trick: the disgust with the discrepancy between words and deeds, between values that are given lip service and actually operating values often occasions movement for the renewal of society.

It also works the other way. Without concern for individuals, without warm personal relationship, justiceing love becomes de-humanizing. We are all familiar with the 1984 version of society in which people are adequately cared for in terms of structures, but are deprived of their individuality. But life again plays its tricks: the threat of dehumanization leads to movements for emphasis on individuality.

Life itself is tricking, pushing, cajoling, dragging us into the doing of love. Love goes on - not as a moral imperative but as an ontological process. Theologically, that is to say that life IS lived for the glory of God, even, as Calvin suggests, as a horrible example.

This love is what we are writing about.

John Epps

ONTOLOGICAL LOVE TRACT

The

Times

Ontological Love

Love's Dimensions

Practical Implications

These are times of human resurgence. Everyone experiences himself newly aware of his citizenship in a global village and is overwhelmed with an explosion of care for his fellow man. no longer can one's concerns be geographically limited. Thanks to rapid communication and transportation, the issues of the world intrude into one's consciousness. The struggles of man today is no longer with ignorance or apathy, but with integrity, radical integrity. How can one practically act out his universal concern? What is required to love the world? What dimensions must be considered in giving practical form to the compassion one feels for the rest of mankind?

The answers to these and related questions are found in an exploration of the dynamics of Ontological Love. This love is the foundation and source of life and gives the capacity to receive and experience universal care. Ontological Love may be defined as the authentic relationship between man and his neighbor, his society, and the Mystery of Being Itself.

A Man's life has three primary aspects. One of these has to do with knowing, with relationship to individuals, with communication through language. Ontological Love in this aspect release the illumination of mundane situations, occasions foundational decisions and motivates societal care. The second has to do with doing, with relationship to society, with communication through activity. Love in this aspect allows man to dramatize life's meaning, to order corporate existence and to signal future society. The third has to do with being, with relationship to the depth of reality, with communication through life style. Ontological Love in this aspect symbolizes and guards human deeps and embodies social responsibility. All of these activities are dimensions of love. They are interrelated and inseparable.

The analysis of Ontological Love gives aim to man's actions. It leads him to know that as a child of fate he can design the universe. He becomes aware that everyone experiences the same basic care. He realizes that all life is victorious and all death is full of meaning.