The Beloved Gospel

I have been immersing myself lately in the Gospel of John. I didn't plan to do it. It just started happening. It's like deciding to go out for a walk and finding that no matter how hard you try, you cannot make yourself stay on your prescribed path. That is how it has been with the Gospel of John. I might start out dipping into another passage of the Bible, but I keep winding up back in John. I have to wonder if Jesus had the same problem.  No matter how how much he loved the other disciples and spent time with them,  did he repeatedly find that he ended up hanging out with John? Was his loving nature so absorbing that Jesus enjoyed his association with John more than the others? Is this how the gospel writer gained the moniker "the disciple whom Jesus loved?" Surely Jesus loved all his disciples. So why did John refer to himself as "the beloved disciple?" Perhaps we will not know that until we reach the other side. In the meantime, I will just enjoy immersing myself in the Gospel of John, which I have taken to referring to as the "gospel of love."