Today promises to be a good one. I am going to have two visitors, a new friend who is three years old and has a book on swords that he wants to show me and Steve my old buddy who has his sourdough rye Viking bread that he wants to share. And in between all that my dear tractor Mabel will start. But first I have time to be with you.

I was up for a time in the wee hours sleepless and this is some of the best time that I spend these days. It’s quite and there is nothing to distract me and it is just my thoughts and perhaps a visit by the Holy Spirit to hope for. But for sure it is a situation that I am over trying to fight thinking that I am “missing” sleep.

But the topic du jour is the longing for love. The three types of love that the Greeks identified with three different names. Agape, Eros and Phileo are them I think. Maybe we as people need them divided and it keeps us out of trouble but they have to do with each other closely.

Agape, or unconditional love is our love for God (and he for us) so one would think that it would be a fairly easy proposition to connect with him. But sometimes it feels like trying to get a glass of water from the bottom of Hoover Dam. Or, my image last night in the wee hours was God as a gale. Standing in a strong wind has always been a cleansing experience for me. It buffets me so strongly that I have to forget everything else for as long as I can stand it. When I want to start forgetting I can start to forget in that space. God can be found in that emptiness for me. Maybe the only thing that creeps in is fear which is perhaps the idea of “God fearing”.

Or there is Eros, which is the erotic version. This joining with a beloved feels as intense as a gale for sure and can cause major longing when absent as the world of love songs can attest.

Or there is Phileo love which is brotherly love which we got a serious dose of on the Camino. This is the predominant feature of the Camino in most people’s minds. In every way possible this happened continually and was impossible to ignore. It may have started as a breeze but it got to be a gale later as we all got the hang of it. And then I think that this was the major longing during our rocky reentry.

All these kinds of love are related and may have to be divided up for our benefit. We are like kindergarteners and need help to keep on task and out of trouble, me included at sixty seven years of age. God is the root though as we experience any love anywhere at any time.

YupanyperfectloveFelipe.