Laurel passed on "these gems from C.S. Lewis" to some of us in the office in honor of Valentine's Day, and I comment below:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: "We give thanks to thee for thy great glory." Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection — if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”

So, I'm back on the "radically new kingdom" kick - if God is Love, and Love is brokenness, or openness to the possibility of brokenness, then how can we imagine the perfect world-to-come being one without brokenness? Or maybe in that world-to-come, it’s more a matter of healing being more powerful and present than brokenness – but don’t we try to claim that for the present-day, too? That God is ever-present and in a way fills in those dark places, as an agent of healing (a process which may take a really long time, but nonetheless, is happening even before we’re aware of it (i.e. prevenient grace!)? (Which also shouldn’t negate God working through us as agents of healing, too – i.e. working for peace and social justice is not a mute issue.) I guess I can’t imagine a world that is complete, not in process (it all comes back to process theology!).

Oh – but maybe in this so-called “world-to-come,” everyone will be open to the possibility of brokenness, but no one will actually become broken, because the love given and received will be so whole and full? But what if real Love is only developed through that process of brokenness? In that case, maybe living in this broken world is indeed preparation for the moment when that “world-to-come” comes, when all will be made whole again – but that becomes problematic again, as this world becomes reduced to a waiting “game.”

Ok, and one more thing – given the second love quote from Lewis, “need-love” and “gift-love” become kind of obsolete – thus leaving only “appreciative love”. Maybe that’s alright, maybe not. Talk amongst yourselves.