Can love be taught?

Tonight I was struck by a phrase from the first letter of St. John. It basically said that the reason we can love is because God loved us first.

This is a familiar quote, but for some reason, tonight it caught my ear. Is it true that a person cannot be taught to love? That he or she can only learn love by being loved? I tend to think there is a lot of truth in that.

How would I teach someone to love without demonstrating it by my example? I have a hard time imagining that learning real love is an academic exercise. No, instead, I think it's an exercise of giving. Through a parent, grandparent, another relative, a friend, even a pet -- someone or something shows us what it means to love. When we experience this, our own heart discovers a model for learning how to give itself to someone else.

The next step comes, I believe, when we learn that this love has its roots in God's boundless giving of Self to us. This infinite love takes in the entire human family, indeed all of creation. One can be taught this in theory, but only lived experience, I believe, lets us take it into ourselves and realize its meaning.

At least that's what struck me this evening.

a ky monk