Because I'm not articulate enough on my own, I have to rely on other people's work. But I can't keep from sharing tehse two paragraphs describing vividly the risks involved in faith and love. From Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving:
"To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointemnt. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern--and to take the jump and stake everything on these values" (106).
Fromm goes on to connect the risk involved in faith as being similar to the risk involved in love. "To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love" ( 107).
Thank you Fromm for being brilliant and for uncovering the human fears so clearly.
1 comment:
"...but the greatest of these is love."
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