Agape and the Opening of the Heart's Doors

When we were assigned papers to write in high school and college and we didn't know what to write, we began the paper with a definition. I think all of us, growing up in the United States, were asked to write a paper called "What Made Gatsby Great?" at the end of our reading The Great Gatsby. There are an infinite number of English teachers who sat down at the end of a long day, opened a file folder containing 30 essays to grade, and sighed: The title of the one on top was--"What Made Gatsby Great? In Webster's Dictionary the definition of greatness is..." I know I did that and all my friends did too. And here I am, doing it again.

In the aftermath of the flood we had in Bloomsburg, one of the three places where individuals are going to get help is called Agape. I've passed by it many times and I assumed it was a church. It isn't; it's made up of a group of committed Christians who live their faith by doing good works. Since I've been there volunteering there as a counselor while helping to answer the continually ringing phones, I've noticed that the work agape gets used a lot and people are talking about what it means. Here's what the online dictionary,wikipedia, says:

Agape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God. The term extends to the love of one's fellow individuals.

I've never volunteered to help in a disaster situation so I was very much affected by the emotions that it stirred within me. The name of the place, Agape, aligns itself perfectly with what has been going on inside it since the flood. There is intense love being released among all who are involved in coping with this disaster, and very few of these people knew each other before it happened. Yet they are getting along with each other in intensely stressful situations and not only that, but good works are being executed competently every minute.

There are many stories but here is one of my favorites. At the end of my shift a lady came up the stairs to the place where all the phone lines had been installed. She sat down and took a deep breath. Then she told us that somebody from our local bank had just come in the door and gave a check to Agape for quite a large amount. Everybody was stunned. I had not known the financial workings of Agape. Apparently they survived by way of individual personal contributions alone. So now here was the money to provide a lot of food, clothes, rent, and many other necessities, including the five new phone lines that had been put in.

I was sitting on the front steps of the Agape building, waiting for my husband to come, and a man I knew came up to me. He thanked me for volunteering and I thanked him; then I told him about the donation. He said: How did Eileen (the director) look? and I said "She looked pink, as if a lamp had been turned on within her."