For Love and Something Else

Sometimes I hate the word love.

 

    Every time I watch a Rom-com where a man tells a woman he loves her wants to be with her in spite of all the ways she makes life unlivable I groan. 

    Is it possible for such a thing to be called love, or just infatuation? Most women swoon over such narratives. If the sexes were flipped, feminists would rage and say the woman was enslaved to the man by some unnatural fetish, and I would tend to side with them on that point.

Then the word gets thrown around in such a careless manner out in the real world. 

"I love everybody." Says the grown adult who ought to know better. I have to bite my tongue to keep from retorting that it isn't possible for a single person to love everybody without knowing everybody. And that is not only impossible, but a fatiguing prospect to set for oneself.

    Finally, and, which is perhaps the worst, is when people completely mis-define love to mean niceness and affability. 

    They say "be loving," when they mean "be nice."

    "Be loving," when they mean "don't be contrary."

    "Love people," when they mean, "affirm people." 

    It is this last which I see as hugely damaging. What you're saying when you define these things as love, is that this is what it means to truly care for someone: be nice to him, affirm him, don't contradict him, encourage him to do what he likes, never tell him no, never question his actions, always allow him to be right, never rebuke.

    We all know that this is a faulty standard, one would never consider it loving to allow one's child to eat whatever he wanted for breakfast, choose his own television shows, play all the time, say hurtful things whenever he felt like it.

    To allow such things would be anathema, yet why is this such a problem when the child grows up. When he turns eighteen does he suddenly morph into the paradigm of perfection? I should think the state of our prisons can attest to the fault in that sort of dogma.

    Is it loving to affirm a friend's choices even when you believe those choices to be wrong? Is it loving to submit to another's authority even when that authority is misplaced and ill-founded? Is it loving to leave a man to do as he pleases?

    We should always hold back the words that sting, scorch, and sear and serve no other purpose, but how often do we restrain our tongues for fear of conflict, for love of approval, for self-preservation? 

    Are we being loving then? Or are we consigning our friends and loved ones to a more terrible fate?

    The son of dear family friends sowed some wild oats growing up. His mother prayed regularly for one thing; that whatever he did, he would never get away with it. Sure enough, he did always get caught at whatever mischief he set his hand to during his teen years and this was what eventually led to a course correction for the better in his life.

    Had he not been caught, or had his parents been less vigilant, would his life be different now? Would he not be a happy, creative man, beloved husband, and father of three? 

     

I don't know, but I'm afraid to wonder.

 

I used to love sneaking things, not because I loved sneaking things, but because it was fun to plot and strategize, it was fun to plan my own covert operation and pull it off successfully. I didn't just sneak , I went places, I watched, and observed, eavesdropped regularly, and peeked at things(usually other people's diaries and personal writings) I wasn't supposed to.

    In my case I soon gave it up because doing these things made me realize that the rules were in place not to hamper me, but to protect me, to aid me in my growing up and learning years. There are many things from that time that I wish I could un-see and un-hear.

    Rules, rebukes, retardants. They are the most loving structures in our crazy, clamourous, chaotic world.

    It is loving to put a restraint on ourselves for the sake of others, but not to withhold things for the sake of momentary affability on their part.

    Would we willingly save our friends from the consequences of their bad behavior only to watch them fall harder and harder? Would we silently watch while they catapult themselves into a  destructive whirlpool? Will we pat their hands while they ruin themselves? Ought we to let them drag us with them? Should our friends leave us to drown in our own destructive habits?

    We must act, we cannot do anything else, unless, of course, we do not really love them. 

    If we do not really love them, then the words meant to heal will only sting, the rules mean to uplift will only squash, the restraints meant to protect will only decimate. And what is left of our loving behavior is an ash heap of self-love, preservation, shattered dignity, hubris, and self-centered adoration.

    Where does love start and apathy end? Where does humility flower and narcissism wither?

    I have found it nowhere else but on the hill of Calvary. Where God took on a curse, became, in fact, the curse, for squalid, loathsome creatures such as we are.

    There we must start and bow our own hearts, accept His love before we can hand it out to others. Love takes work, it takes sacrifice, it puts other's true needs above our perceived ones.

    Only then does the word love shake off the false, abysmal trappings with which it is so often laden, and take on the full, untarnished glory of what it was meant to be.

Do you love your loved ones? Don't wait to find out.