The Phenomenon

In sociology, familial love is a type affinity or natural affection felt between members of a group bound by common ancestry or blood ties. The cultural ideal of familial love is one that is committed, unconditional, selfless, emotionally full, and reciprocally returned by the other.
In the fourth century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato [428-347BC], disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, positioned the view that one would never love a person in that person’s totality, because no person represents goodness or beauty in totality. At a certain level, one does not even love the person at all. Rather, one loves an abstraction or image of the person’s best qualities. Plato never considered that one would love a person for his or her unique qualities, because the ideas are abstractions that do not vary. In love, we thus look for the best embodiment of a universal truth in a person rather than that of an idiosyncratic truth. (Wikipedia.com)
Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick developed a Loves Attitude Scale based on John Alan Lee's theory called Love styles. Lee identified six basic theories that people use in their interpersonal relationships:
1. Eros (romantic love) — a passionate physical love based on physical appearance and beauty.
2. Ludus (game playing)— love is played as a game; love is playful; often involves little or no commitment and thrives on "conquests".
3. Storge (companionate love) — an affectionate love that slowly develops, based on similarity and friendship.
4. Pragma (pragmatic love) — inclination to select a partner based on practical and rational criteria where both will benefit 5. From the partnership.
5. Mania (possessive love) — highly emotional love; unstable; the stereotype of romantic love; its characteristics include jealousy and conflict.
6. Agapē (altruistic love) — selfless altruistic love; spiritual
(Wikipedia.com)

The term Agapē love has always been something of a phenomenon to me. I have heard the term expounded upon since I was a young child and especially a young child growing up in a Christian family. Many spiritual and religious authors of Bibles days and beyond have used this type of love in explaining Christ's love for the world and how he gave of Himself even before he knew us. For this reason the term Agapē love has been a mystery. It will continue to remain a mystery because my human mind cannot understand or wrap itself around the idea of it. As human beings we are created with flaws and that is what makes us humans.
We are fallible and with natural error. Imperfect creatures are such as ourselves are constantly striving to become better, greater, stronger, and wiser. Our wisdom comes with life experiences and failures. If failure did not show his face once in a while then we would never learn from our mistakes and become stronger. When you are on top of a mountain metaphorically speaking, you must come down from that mountain and walk through the valleys around you. The mountaintop is a place of bliss and serenity while the valley in contrast is a place and loneliness, anxiety and unknown. The unknown is the next breath that we take. If we trust to take our next breath to stay alive then the next step we take in life is of that great of importance. We must continue our walking forward on this journey called life.
Because of our fallible nature we are always trying to obtain this so called Agapē love.
Can we obtain this kind of love?
Will we ever receive this kind of love?