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Love within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love in a Selfish World

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I have been a fan of the late Lewis Smedes whose insightful writings have been a rare inspiration in the field of ethics and theology. Besides 'Forgive and forget' and 'Mere Morality', this book has been IMO one of his best works on ethics. He combines deep ethical insights with beautiful prose, that croons in your imagination long after you have put down the book. Using Paul's rhapsody on 'Agape love' in 1 Cor 13, he teases out the powerful drives of the love that knows no bounds - love does not seek its own self, love is not haughty, love has poise, love believes and risks with a kind of reckless abandonment, love hates evil, love gives hope... and at the same time holds all these superlatives in tension with the finitude of the human lover. So while the far-flung larger-than-life characteristics of love are eloquently expounded, Smedes discusses how love works itself out in our day to day world, conditioned by limited resources, human sinfulness and societal constraints. What we have is a hard-nosed treatment of the virtue of Christian love as it is exercised in the fallen world with the accompanying virtues of discernment and justice. Smedes writes with the theological acumen of Aquinas and the literary prowess of Shakespeare! Destined to be a classic.