Focused Love

Atriums, photographic f-stops, and the International Scale of Difficulty. 

When we focus on love, we learn to love better.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

New episodes drop on Tuesdays.

Transcript

In a world of modern electricity, if your home has an atrium, you are either an eccentric architecture student or an overly sophisticated billionaire… but in ancient Rome, almost every home had an atrium.  And today, we are going to look at atriums, photography, river rapids, and how focused love should be. 

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.

In architecture, an atrium (plural: atria or atriums) is a large open-air or skylight-covered space surrounded by a building. Atria were a common feature in Ancient Roman dwellings, providing light and ventilation to the interior. In ancient Roman architecture, the atrium was the open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides.  The atrium was the center of the home and typically contained at least three things:

The first was a shallow pool embedded in the floor called an impluvium.  The pool was both beautiful and functional as it would catch the rainwater when it cascaded into the atrium during inclement weather.  After all, the atrium was open-air and brought the outside, inside.  Instead of a covered front porch – you had an atrium.

The second was a table – typically made of stone – that allowed the family to sit and eat together.  The atrium was typically the most lavishly appointed section of the Roman home.  A gathering place for family, friends, and guests.  Eating, chatting, and generally reclining was often done in this central courtyard.

Which brings us to the third and final item that every atrium contained.  An atrium worth its salt, contained a hearth.  The hearth was a central area of the home where the family would gather for warmth, cooking, and socializing.  Meals were made, pots bubbled on a rack above the open fire, and since modern matches had not yet been invented – the hearth was kept perpetually burning.  Those home fires needed to stay lit.

Do you know what Romans called the hearth?  Do you want to guess what the Latin word is for that fireplace that sat in the center of the atrium – the central part of the home?  The Roman word for hearth – the thing that all the family gathered around, that all the home was built around, and that all the warmth radiated out from is – ‘focis’.  The Latin word for hearth is ‘focus’.

The thing you focus on is the thing you love.  And when you lose that focus, you lose your love.  And if we are going to talk about focused love, we must go to the city of Ephesus.  In the book of Revelation, Jesus talks to seven different churches.  One of those churches was the church in Ephesus.  Ephesus was one of the most successful churches in all of the first century.  The book of Acts, chapter 19, tells us that Paul spent two years in Ephesus and during that two-year time period all of ancient Asia heard the word of God.  The Ephesian church was devoted to God, passionate about evangelism, and they quickly gained a reputation for being lovers of God and zealous disciples of Jesus.

Yet only a decade or two later, the book of Revelation records Jesus’ report card for Ephesus had changed – in Jesus’ own words:

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them [to be] false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. 4 'But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. 5 'Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent. (Rev 2:1-5)

The church in Ephesus had left their first love and now their lampstand was going to be taken away.  The fire had gone out.  They’d lost their focus.  The religious activity was their, but the passionate desire for the relationship had fled.  They’d become complacent and comfortable instead of longing to be close to Jesus – they’d let the home fires burn out.  If we are going to love better, our love must stay focused on the original source.  The Ephesians loved being religious, but they had neglected their love for Jesus.

And this can happen in a lot of relationships.  Do you love your spouse, or do you love being married?  There is a difference.  The one that loves being married is wrapped up in the aspects of marriage that benefit them – the companionship, the division of labor, the comfort of a home and the structure of a life you’ve become accustomed to… none of these things are bad to love, but there is a difference between loving those things and loving your spouse – to love your spouse is to focus on them.  Who they are, their goodness, their character, the joy in bringing them joy.  It means that you desire intimacy with them, to trust them, and be trusted by them – you want to know them more and draw nearer to them.  Focus on the spouse and the marriage takes care of itself – focus on the marriage and you might find yourself looking for a new spouse instead of remembering your first love.

The same can easily be said about parenting.  Lots of people love the idea of being parents, but that is not the same thing as loving your kids.  In his letter to the preacher Titus, Paul tells Titus to “encourage young women to love their husbands, to love their children…”  There is a reason for this: anyone can love the idea of kids and husbands, but when those kids are colicky, you haven’t slept more than two hours at a stretch for a week, and your husband can’t even remember to put his clothes in the hamper – it takes a better person to love their children and love their husband then!

Focused love asks the question: What am I trying to love?  Is it Jesus or religion?  Is it my friend or having friends? Is it the people or the stuff?  Ask yourself – what do I love?

And when you do that – you are finding what the hearthfire of your life is and you are also finding the photographer’s focus.  If you’ve ever used a nicer camera with a lens that can be adjusted manually, you’ve probably looked through the viewfinder, put your hand on the lens, twisted the knurled ring (called the focus ring), and adjusted until the subject came into focus.  Most cameras focus automatically, but there is a reason that high end cameras still allow for manual focus.  Sometimes the thing you want to focus on can be missed if you use automation.

When I worked at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, we often had photographers come and photograph the animals, and they often had to use manual focus because the animals were inside cages.  If you autofocus the camera, it would see the cage, and miss that lion, tiger, or bear you’ve been looking for.  Manual focus lets you bypass the obstacle and set your sights on what really is important.

Love requires that kind of focus, too.  If we are going to love our neighbor, we may need to look past their faults, irritations, or immaturities to really see them.  They say that first impressions are important because sadly, first impressions often become lasting impressions.   In many cases, people use first impressions as a shortcut to making decisions, especially when meeting new people or encountering new situations. These initial impressions can influence how people interact with each other and whether they choose to pursue further interactions or opportunities. These initial impressions can be difficult to change, even if they turn out to be inaccurate or incomplete.  Love is the antidote to the first impression fallacy.  That coworker that seemed snobbish and condescending might just be nervous and overcompensating for it at first encounter.  Or the shy person that could easily fade to the background might be chock full of hidden talents and a generous heart.  Love lets us manually focus our hearts so that we avoid stereotyping people by the bars and walls they put up.  Focused love bypasses the differences to find the similarities.  Just like cameras have f-stops to find the right plane of focus.  Learning to love better means we need to learn to find the right plane of focus, too.

In 2 Corinthians 4:18, Paul reminds us that Christians should know not to focus on what is seen, but what is unseen.  Everybody has a soul, and if we focus on that, we will love better.

And if you were focusing in the introduction, I promised you three things, atriums, photography, and river rapids… so, it’s time to set our sights on high speed aquatic turbulence.

River rapids are classified based upon the International Scale of Difficulty.  The classification system ranges from Class 1, the easiest, to Class 6, the highest difficulty that poses definite life-threatening potential for even expert rafters.

River rapids are characterized by speedy currents, turbulent, large waves, and high volumes of water.   Rivers can change from placid and calm to roaring rapids in a very short amount of time and typically rapids are caused by one of two factors – increased volume or a narrowing channel.  In other words, add more water OR focus the water you have into a tighter space.  Same water, same gradient… you just take the water and squeeze it into a smaller space and you move from a lazy Class 1 to a rocking Class 5 ride.  The same principle applies to love.  Focusing our love often means narrowing our focus.

            Stop trying to do everything.  I mean it.  Just stop.  You ever heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” That’s true in life, too.  You can’t be everything to everybody.  What are the titles that would matter to you on your tombstone?

Here lies:

            Devout believer

            Accomplished professional

            Generous philanthropist

            Respected colleague

            Faithful friend

            Beloved husband or wife

            Devoted father or mother

            Brave adventurer

            Dedicated volunteer

            Heroic veteran

You might be able to pick a couple of those to fit on your crypt, but you ain’t gonna get them all – so focus.  Which matters?

Let me give you an extreme example to this:  the apostle Paul chose a life without marriage so he could have the legacy of undivided attention to Christ.  How do I know that?  Because he said it in his letter to the church at Corinth.  Here are three verses on his choice to remain unmarried – each of them from chapter 7 of 1st Corinthians

8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.

32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.

35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

            You’ve got to decide because eventually it will all be water under the bridge and you won’t have any more time.  When we focus on the legacy we want to leave, it let’s us prioritize what water to carry and where to channel our energy.  More hours at work? Maybe, if philanthrophy is a legacy item for you.  Maybe not, if devoted husband and father are what you are shooting for.  What are you hoping to etch into your riverbed?

Brave adventurers are probably going to make different nutritional decisions than the woman that is chasing the title of beloved grandmother and cookie enthusiast.  I’m not even trying to tell you which choices are the right ones, I’m just saying that the choices matter and they will shape the speed and direction of the river that runs through your life.  A focused river can cut its own path.

            Focused love centers the home fires and keeps them burning, it doesn’t get distracted by the cages and walls people put up…it looks closer, and like every good river rapid, it says ‘no’ to the many so it can prioritize the things that matter.

Learn to love better.  Focus your love.

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And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”