The Difference Between "Ser" and "Estar"

I was thinking the other day about all the emotions people have, and the things we feel not quite in our brains, but in all the tender, hidden places of our body. I was thinking that of all the things humans have explained about themselves, emotions seem to be some of the most mysterious parts of ourselves of all. We know that there are certain chemicals flowing around our brains and bloodstreams that release certain hormones or trigger certain chemical responses in parts of our brains, but no one has been able to explain exactly why they work, or what they’re doing there, or even, completely, how they help in the furtherance of the human species.

I don’t know any Greek or Hebrew words or anything, but when the Bible says that “God is love,” I don’t think that means he resembles loves, or does a lot of loving, or even has a lot of qualities that are like love, I really think it means that God is the manifestation of love itself. I don’t know about anyone else, but that kind of makes me want to hide under a pillow for a few days while I think about it. First off, I don’t even know what love is. I know what the dictionary says, I can even look up its etymological history and see how the word has evolved, but when it comes down to it, a definition is just words, and love is, well, it’s love. Ask a husband what love is, ask a mother about her child, ask the 17 year old with the crush on the basketball center, go out and ask anyone who has had any interaction with another human being at all, and you’ll get what love is to that person. But to actually be love? I can’t wrap my mind around it.

And I think there’s a reason I can’t understand love. To understand love, I’d have to first understand a whole lot about the human experience that I just don’t, and two, I’d have to understand God, and no one can do that. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he was talking to the disciples and he said that he had so much more he wanted to tell them, but that they couldn’t bear it (John 16:12). Later he said that there will come a time when he doesn’t have to speak to us in parables anymore, but will be able to use plain language (16:25). I’ve always understood this to mean that Jesus, as God, understood so much more about God than we have ever been able to. I think, and this is just me hiding under a pillow and thinking about things, that Jesus has an entirely different language to use with God, because they are, quite literally, as unified as any two beings can be. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (John 1:1). Okay, so Jesus = God, and if God = love, then therefore, Jesus = love, too. That’s a simplification, but I don’t know how else to look at it.

When I think about people in love, I understand implicitly that they will have a certain language about them. I understand that there will be a certain way they hold hands, walk together, make conversation or kiss goodbye that is entirely theirs. I can see it, but never completely understand what it is they are saying to each other when no words are being said. The closest of lovers understand each other because they have spent time with each other, learning each other, working to understand what it is about the other person that makes them unique and lovely. This language is learned, because no one is born knowing how to communicate that clearly with another person. But I think Adam and Eve were created to have that communication with God, and I think before they broke God’s rules, the communication between God and Adam and Eve was the clearest, most beautiful God-speak ever. Adam and Even enjoyed totally unbroken, uninhibited relationship with God, and God was able to completely reveal himself to them.

So if, at one point in time, humans enjoyed that complete, open relationship with God, it makes sense that we would have understood God’s love-language; we would have known what true love was. It also makes sense, then, to assume that there is some memory of that language left inside us, to make us desire that communication again. I could be wrong, but I think we as broken people are always trying to find something to mimic that relationship with God. I think we are always trying to fall in love, create beauty, or communicate with someone in a way that is holy, in a way that is God’s. I think having understood, a long time ago, perfect communion is what drives us to experience communion today. I think that is why we fall in love, why we understand feelings like guilt and justice, why we are happy at joy and excited at success, why we are lonely for someone, why enjoy the company of people who love us. I think we are all searching for the God that is love, wanting his company again. So how do we find that? How do we love God in that way again? How does a broken person find his way back to the God that echoes inside of his emotion?