The Real Presence of Love

Conservatives oppose abstractions. We favor the concrete, the real, and the human. The things we can touch are the things we can preserve and build upon. Much of the problems in our world can be traced to attempts to loose things from the ground and cast them into the sky as airy shadows of their former selves. “Liberty” once meant the right of good men to live with a measure of independence. It is now an abstract concept that means everyone may live so long as they let live. “Progress” once meant something measurable, whether moral or quantitative. Also now an abstraction, it means nothing but a cloudy picture of some distant future that always remains vague enough to offend no one.

The greatest casualty in this war to fling the concrete into the cosmos is Love. Love was once grounded in reality and attached to form. Marriage, friendship, and family represented some of these. But all of the forms reinforced the idea that Love was something tangible and required a manifestation in this world.

William Blake once lamented that “pity is become a trade, and generosity a science.” Charity in our age can be reduced to having a set amount atomically taken from your bank account and sent halfway around the world. No second thoughts, no fuss, yet a clean conscience knowing you have done your part.

The incarnation of Christ is of course the greatest example of Love in history. Christians know this because it established the means of our salvation, but it is also symbolic in that through the incarnation God showed us that acts of true Love are proved by a real presence. God left the work of the abstract and entered the world of the concrete. He entered our world and made himself real to us. Through his act of Love we now have access to the real presence of what was before, to most, only an abstract idea.

In our own lives, as we bond with friends and strive to build community, we should remember that Christ commanded us to love one another as he loved us. And that requires us to become a real presence in the lives of others. Lofty thoughts will do us no good. We must ground ourselves in reality and in the concrete. Liberty will not bind us together. Progress will not bind us together. Only the real presence of love will bind us together as a community.