C. S. Lewis makes a compelling argument that perfect love is perfect wisdom–or knowledge or understanding. You’d have to read his whole thing, which I encourage you to do. (I think it’s from The Four Loves.) I firmly believe that, and have since I read it–not that I doubt much of what Lewis wrote.
Futher, since God is love, then in God, and only in God, can we find love. Or is it Love? When we are in Him, we find Love, we become Love, at least in the way creatures can. And we will not understand this until we love completely, which requires being in Love. What God knows is love, and we want to know God, so knowing love is knowing God. We seek the truth, because the truth sets us free, and freedom, at its heart, is the ability to know, love, and serve God with all our hearts, minds, and strength, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
When we meet a person who captures our attention, the spark, be it friendship or Eros comes from the glimpse of God revealed to us through them. Often, we recognize that something larger than this world moves our feelings in Eros, but we miss the same conductor in friendship. For instance, I cannot look at my wife without seeing God’s love for me. Sometimes it blinds me. Always, it delights me. But with friends, I often see only them.
That God-to-human kind of love, though, cannot hide itself, even from our willing blindness, when we realize that the other person – the object if you prefer– knows something we wish we knew. In other words, when we stumble upon someone who is cordial and makes us happy because he has knowledge, wisdom, faith, humor, whatever superior to ours, yet he makes us feel, not envious, but inspired, we get a glimpse of how we approach God, though, perhaps, on a much smaller scale.
“I want to know what God knows” seems to translate easily to “I want to love as God loves.” In knowing more of the right things, we cannot help but to love more in the right way.
For a few days, I have had the joy and grace to correspond with someone who reminds of the limits of my experience, knowledge, and wisdom in this way–the way that gives me awe that so much more exists. It’s an exhilerating feeling, like the first time you rode a two-wheeler by yourself. You know you’re not very good, but the fact that you’re doing it at all is good enough just then. Staying up on that bike is infinitely greater than tipping over, just as knowing God only in glimpses is infinitely better than knowing Him not at all.
Instead of feeling ignorant, which I am, I feel elated. God loves me enough to show me that there are even more treasures than the ones that I can imagine. And He chose a delightful man to deliver this message.
Thank you, Father. And thank you, Father.