The erotic foundations of Love

This month we are talking about love over on the Spirtual Formation and Leadership blog.

Love is a many splendored thing, so the crooners tell us. We are familiar with the Greek thoughts on the subject, three classifications: Eros, Phileo and Agape. Agape is the unconditional perfect Love of God. Phileo we know as the brotherly love, the best Peter could muster when Jesus asked if Peter loved him. Eros has a dirty, unacceptable quality in our minds equal in essence to lust. I submit that this descending valuation of love isn’t true to the God who is love, nor perfectly helpful to our spiritual formation.

Poor Folk

Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is a collection of letters between a poor civil servant and a ruined ill young woman with an unfortunate past. The charm of the story lies in what is not said. What happens when the two are together? How do the emotions, just hinted at in the letters, drive the story? The final letter is left unfinished. How does the story end? The possibilities excite the imagination and carry the reader away into Dostoyevsky's world. Even without his characteristic lush descriptions of place and people, even without any dialog, Dostoyevsky's genius shines.



View all my reviews