Love. This is an interesting and often cheesy subject, one that can certainly not be discussed in depth in a single entry. This is just one face of a many facetted jewel.
What is love? This is a very broad question but I like thinking about the bigger picture. What is a love story? The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Pocohantas... yes. These are all fantastic stories of lovers. But are there other love stories? What about Friends, My Sister's Keeper, Harry Potter, Eragon, or The Blind Side? We love our spouses, we love our friends, families, siblings, children, parents, teachers, mentors. We even love our pets. Love permeates our society, even as evil and hatred seem to prevail. Love is a culture's blood, it binds them, makes them stronger. But it is also subtle. Like our own blood, it moves beneath the surface, mostly forgotten. We become aware of this blood when it comes gushing out, perhaps when our own heart's are broken and wounded, other times when we are in the midst of celebration, and still other's when we become excited and we feel our heart's throbbing with excitement and the blood rushing to our head.
I tried to find a definition of love. Tried to find some means to explain or control it. At first, I thought "love is an emotion, a feeling" but is that love? There is a quote from The Good Wife that got me thinking that love isn't always an emotion, Alicia says "reciting poetry is easy, it's parent teacher conferences that are hard." Feelings are fleeting and temporary. So then I thought "love must be an action then." Yes we do indeed show our love through actions, whether we have baked our friend a birthday cake, held children as they cry, or made soup for our sick grandmother. I cannot deny that both action and feeling must both be a part of love. James said show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith through my actions. Is it not the same for love? If you claim to love someone, but never act through your love, do you really love them? But what about this love? What of the love that occurs between a missionary and the orphans they teach? What of the love that occurs between soldiers? What of the love between a stranger holding open a door? Of two people working together for a cause? I guess I came to the conclusion that I have no definition for love but that doesn't stop us from knowing it, from recognizing it, when we look for it.
This brings us to our point. Love surrounds us, it enfolds us. Both the love of our friends and the love of our God. There is no escaping it. But it is subtle. It moves beneath the surfaces of our relationships. We must open our eyes to see it. So start looking.
No comments:
Post a Comment