The Third Principle: Learn true love in the school of the family

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LESSON 12: Family Education of the Heart

A. True love requires that we educate our hearts.

1. While existing on the foundation of ethics, love is not a duty dictated by ethical standards. It is the spontaneous flow of emotion from the heart. Why is the ethical foundation necessary?

2. We know from experience that love is often changeable. Emotions run hot and cold, affectionate and hateful. This is the character of selfish love.

• Selfish love is changeable; it is not true. It disappoints. It fails.
• Selfish love is narrow and short-sighted, hence it does not prosper. True love is giving and goes beyond the self.
• Selfish families do not serve the public. There is no basis for God's love to dwell in their midst.

3. True love contains true standards within it. It naturally abides by ethical norms and encourages others to abide by them.

4. Therefore, love grows on the foundation of ethics.

• Ethical norms lay out the paths which free us to give and receive love.
• The vertical ethic nurtures the quality of character that promotes true, lasting love.

5. This is expressed completely in the family.

6. Therefore children learn the standard of ethical love through experience in the family.

B. The family is the textbook and school of love.

1. Education happens through stories and instructions.

• Through our lineage we learn a tradition and way of life from our parents and grandparents. Lessons of the past are passed on.
• Grandparents love to tell stories of the past. Children love to listen to stories of the past. In this way, past and future are connected.
• Stories are among the most effective means of education.
• The most reliable predictor of criminal behavior is not race, economic status or education, but rather the absence of grandparents during childhood.

2. Education happens through relationships.

• Through actual relationships with grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, and children we learn proper norms of behavior.
• Norms are taught by natural practice and living example.
• The family practices and enforces rules within an atmosphere of love, trust, understanding and acceptance.
• Rules are not impersonally applied, but personality and feelings are naturally taken into account.

3. The school of love brings development of the heart (the ability to give and receive love). This is the growth of love.

• This is the most important purpose of the family.
• No matter what our wealth, position or fame, the family we are born into and the family we create form a permanent set of relationships to care for us and challenge us to grow from within.
• More importantly, our heart grows through the give and take of love with parents, brothers and sisters, husband and wife. We learn to relate with people of all ages and genders.

4. We learn all our lives: after youth we experience the same lessons from the "school of love" all over again in the position of parents and grandparents.

5. Therefore, our family relationships are the most important learning experiences.

C. The four great realms of heart.

1. Heart must be exercised in order for our spirits to remain healthy.

• God's heart is the irrepressible source from whence love flows.
• Our hearts are vessels to receive love and give love.
• Heart refers to our innermost, autonomous motivation, desire and ambition.

2. The expressions of true love in the family reveal the richness, power and depth of divine/human love.

• There are specific types of love exchanged between family members, based upon their relationship of age, sex and marriage.
• Each is based upon heart, and each partakes of a "realm of heart" which is from God. The "realm of heart" is a domain of spirit within which a distinctive quality of love, with a special purpose, naturally, spontaneously flows. It flows between human beings and between God and us. A specific type of love naturally flows between brothers, different type of love naturally flows between husband and wife, third type of love flows from parents to infants, or to teenagers, etc.

• There are four general "realms of heart," those of children, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, and parents. We grow through these realms like grades at school. We ascend from one realm to the next when our love reaches the standard required for entry into the higher realm. It is wrong to enter a higher realm of love prematurely, which is most common through premarital sex and "children having children." Each realm, however, includes the realms below it. For example, a child may enter the realm of brother-sister love, but he will still be relating to his parents through children's love. A man may enter the realm of conjugal love, but he still respects his wife as he would his sister.

3. Education of love for each family member progresses through the realms of heart.

• Children's heart toward parents.
• Brother-sister heart toward each other.
• Husband-wife heart (conjugal love).
• Parent's heart toward children (fullest expression of God's Heart).
• These realms are equally valuable and beautiful. They reveal the basic dimensions of God's love. They pull God's love into our lives, each in its own special way.

4. In a family centered on true love, love flows through the realms of heart.

• Love circulates among family members, gaining energy through daily interactions.
• In each realm, we love each other, experience each other's love, and help each other grow.
• Each experience contains both learning and teaching.

In the next lesson we will explore the children's realm of heart.

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