Hello there! I would like to first welcome the new followers of this blog. Be sure to read the “Why am I Writing This” section to get an idea for what the blog is about. I hope you enjoy the ride with me! Also please feel free to bring your thoughts and feelings to the discussion. I really got a lot out of the comments from last week’s post! Thank you for bringing more life to the conversation!
Let us talk about love tonight! Love is a basic and core part of life. I think it is good to explore one of the core pieces to being human once in a while. Yes, it is entirely worthwhile to talk about love! So, let me say something about it.
The first thing I want to say is love is not sexual attraction. Romantic love is a primary source of love for some adults, but it is by far not the only place that love comes from. In addition, not all romance ends in sex. In an ideal life you would get love from your parents and siblings first. Then you would get love from the close community your family has around. As you grow older the love you receive would come from a community of people that you gather for yourself. This group would be called your friends. Next you would search out for a person to share all this love with. This would be your future spouse. He or she would have their own circles of love in their life and the two circles would meet each other and thus create a large circle of love for the couple to have their own family in. Love is everything from birth to death, and not just the sexy parts of life.
The second thing I want to say is love is a needed thing and love is in short supply. There is good evidence that this ideal picture did not happen for a broad swath of the population. Somewhere on the chain things got really messed up. More than likely, the chain was messed up long before our births. Nobody knew something was broken and/or how to fix it if they were aware of the problem.
So if we need love and there is not enough of it on hand the next logical question would be, “How do we make love?” The problem with love is that it is not entirely up you to bring love into existence. On your own, love that is given and not received will eventually dry out. On our own, unreciprocated love does not last long. The truth as I have found it is no one person is enough to fill their lives with the love they need.
Also love does not seem to be just a send receive relationship. With real love there is no giving to get. When someone gives to me in love I know it, because the person simply wanted me to have something they thought I would better off with. If you had that experience, the warm glowing feeling you get is love. It appears there is a paradoxical relationship in not having enough love on your own to give without receiving, yet making love is to give and not be concerned with getting love in return. But I am doubtful this is the entire picture.
At this point, I need to back track. I have avoided the question that should have come first. “What is love?” Anyone that has been to a reasonably Christian wedding has heard 1 Corinthians 13. To paraphrase, it says love is patient, kind, and everything nice. Everything that is mentioned in this part of the Bible is true about love , but the writer does not define what love really is. To me love simply means I am on your side. Love means to be for someone. If I love you I will do what I can for you. If there is something I think will be good for you, and you would be better for it I would want to give it to you.
There is plenty to explore regarding love, but I need to stop for tonight. I will certainly pick up were I left next week. I am looking forward to getting into about what being for someone means. I will also get back to the paradox next week as well. There is no end to the things that are worthwhile to talk about when it comes to love. I can continue on exploring the facets of love for quite a while. Maybe I will.
Thanks for reading and good night!
The Writer