The Reservoir of Love

My high school was a private Southern Baptist school. As such, we received a healthy dose of the Good Book in just about every class, but especially in the required annual Bible study class, typically taken in either Fall or Spring semesters. One particular lesson I recall that stills seems applicable is the various types of Love a person can experience or express. The spiritual love a person can experience with God, the charity that someone can express for others, the depths of friendship between persons in life, the romantic connections, and the act of physical love.

As with abstract concepts, these can certainly get confused and muddled at times. There are always stories of people who confuse their loving friendships with romantic attraction, or read more into the physical act of love making than actually exists beyond the moment of passion. I think that Charity can also be mis-construded as actual Friendship as well, which is part why I started thinking down this thread. Charity seems to be a more one way expression of love between persons, with the feedback coming from the knowledge that God/the Universe/Karma/the Good & Right path, whatever, is served by the charitable act. Friendship is more of a two way exchange of love that keeps both afloat as we go through life.

In a sense, charity destingushes itself by being a kind of heirarchical relationship between different tiers of persons, whereas friendship is more of a connection on the same level.

For myself, I know of confused charity with friendship my whole life. I don't claim to be the most charitable or altruistic by any means, but I feel sometimes like I give out more to some people than would be balanced out if we were friends, and not just connected in a heirarchy of dependency or mutually collaborative self-interest.

This may also be why the romantic love connections are so difficult for me. I instinctively withdraw from their potential, and yet I'm still very curious about them. Never having had much of a romantic life, I feel disconnected, and certainly alone amongst my peers in that lack of experince. I just don't know what I am capable of giving, and perhaps to terrified of what I could receive.