Meditation: "A New Idea of Love"

This morning I was reading about St. Paul’s conversion – how he suddenly learned a completely new way of thinking about love – and I realized that I need to think carefully (probably for the first time) about what love actually is. First of all, perhaps I should capitalize the word, to show that it stands for a force that has no corporeality, and therefore no body and no limits, and therefore can never be destroyed, or even slightly injured. This is what Paul saw on the road to Damascus – that this power called love is not confined to any particular place or object, but is universal and supreme. Having no material boundary lines, there's no place where Love isn’t present, and there’s no power (not even a hint of one) that can oppose its supremacy. What’s really wonderful about this is that the same is true for other non-material qualities. Kindness, for instance, has no boundaries and can never be even slightly injured by any material force. Enthusiasm, too, cannot be confined in space and time, for it is made of nothing that can be held in or checked. Gentleness, confidence, generosity, peacefulness – all of these are spiritual forces that sweep through the universe unimpeded. I suppose what really astonished Paul about his new realization is that it thoroughly overhauled his notions about God. He had probably been trapped for his entire life in the belief that the supreme being was some type of super-human ruler who controlled the universe somewhat the way an absolute human monarch would. What he suddenly saw on the road to Damascus was that this force called “God” was actually far, far greater than he had imagined. He saw that it is a non-material, non-personal, non-local power that is totally invincible and utterly unrelenting. It’s the power of Love – the power that knocked Paul right off his horse.