Journey with love

The Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton reflects on Lent and Valentine’s Day.

FEBRUARY is a funny, short little month – still sitting on the cusp of the new end of the year, it just misses the momentum (or the crash-landing, depending on your approach to Hogmanay) that January enjoys.

Maybe that’s why we get so excited about that wee day in the middle of the month set aside to celebrate ‘all things love’.

Valentine’s Day gives poor old February a lift, and I have to admit, I love it! So, I was all prepared to go full-on hearts and flowers in this article, to celebrate love in all it’s many-splendored ways. I was going to unpack the different types of love expressed in ancient Greek language.

There is Éros, intimate or romantic love. Socrates argued that Éros reconnected the soul with of the power of the physical, so contributed to a deeper, more lasting appreciation of inner beauty. Intimate attraction, when nurtured and cherished, led to a lasting, more spiritual bond.

Philia marks friendship and loyalty, usually between equals. Aristotle spoke of philia as a dispassionate regard that grew within community and family, and was fed by equity, honesty and familiarity. This love is the foundation on which justice is securely built.

Storge stems from the natural empathy parents feel for their children. It has a stubbornness to it, a love that holds on and embeds itself in seeking the welfare of the beloved.

Philautia means ‘self-love’, and, if you think about it, can be viewed as both necessary to survival and a black hole of self-centredness that lures you in. The Greeks divided this concept into positive and negative: one, the unhealthy version, is the self-obsessed love, and the other is the concept of self-compassion.

Xenia is an ancient Greek concept of hospitality. It can be highly ritualised, wrapped up in the giving of gifts, in ceremony, in official welcome and a commitment to reciprocity. Xenia, this welcome of foreigners and guests, is a pillar of our faith community and a moral obligation.

And agápe, universal, unconditional love – God-love. Thomas Aquinas described agápe as ‘willing the good of another’.

So, I was set to focus on love in this funny, short little month. New Year is our re-set, but February has to settle for a settling in, so what better than to settle on love?

It was then that I sensed a potential culture clash coming. Lent begins early this year, and we start that period of fasting and abstinence, reflection and repentance in the middle of February. In fact, Valentine’s Day 2024 falls on Ash Wednesday.

“ Valentine’s Day gives poor old February a lift, and I have to admit, I love it!

So do we sigh and set aside the box of chocolates the bottle of wine, maybe scribble an IOU on the heart-covered card … ‘to be redeemed after Easter’?

Or do we sense a symmetry, a beautiful opportunity to turn back to love, to journey over those 40 days considering the myriad faces of love and how it holds us together, to ask ourselves if our lives express and embody love-inspired justice, empathy, community?

I invite you, in this settling in time, to journey with love. Be intentional this Lent, sit with the faces of love and learn from them. Let them change you. ¤

The Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2023/24.