A journey into the unknown

I haven't posted more than an accounting of the happenings of my day in quite some time. I thought I'd post something about which I've been thinking an awful lot lately. A question that really has no one right answer but several.

What is love?

That's it... that's the question. I keep telling you all about how much I love Jill and to be perfectly honest when I'm asked what love is, I find myself searching for the proper words. Everyone knows what love is... but no one can really define it. It's hard to break down into cold calculated words. So, I searched the internet and came up with a few things...

Everyone has an opinion on love, but few are brave enough to define it. This universal and apparently inconsistent emotion seems almost incapable of definition.

One definition of love is:

The affinity experienced between two people who are naturally able and willing to tune into one another's emotional, intellectual, and physical states - and respond to them in a nurturing and a stimulating way.

It's a mouthful that demands explanation. What is it that makes us 'willing' and 'naturally able' to love?

Let's start at the beginning - at the moment when someone new turns us on. Being 'turned on' is the immediate reason why we become willing to love someone. It's our response to their observable qualities.

But now we're on a journey into the unknown. The person that we think we see in front of us could well be a million miles from the person we are about to get involved with. We may walk in willing, but there's no guarantee that we'll end up loving.

The problem is that compatibility, the key ingredient for a long term successful relationship, lies hidden from view. If we could choose compatible partners by their outer characteristics, few relationships would fail.

We think we can spot compatibility, but the factors that govern compatibility are far too complex to be revealed by a simple intellectual assessment. In fact our intellectual abilities may well be a hindrance to partner-selection. In a love relationship, we interact in ways that our intellect can't decipher.

Only time reveals the truth. It's then that we face the crunch: is this the person we want to spend the rest of our life with; or is this the person we never want to see again? Is this someone whom we are naturally able to love; or is this someone from another planet?

It surfaces long after we find ourselves willing to love.

Historically, there has only been one way to find out if two people are 'naturally able' to love each other. They've had to put their relationship through the potentially heart-breaking test of time.

I edited that slightly... but I think the general gist of it remains. The dictionary definition seems to agree with that assessment.

Dictionary's definition of love:

Love is a strong liking for someone. It's a strong passionate affection for another person
A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

*nods*
All very intriguing... but does it really explain WHAT love IS???

In that same search for a definition I came across this famous poem. It is about love but doesn't attempt to define it... more it shows us love's nature.

Sonnet XLIII, from the Portuguese.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1806-1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Maybe that's it... the defition of love is not in what it IS but more in what it does? Well... if that's the case... then perhaps we have the ultimate definition given to us in the Bible.

That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

-- John 15:12b & 13

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.

-- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a


That is it... love is not a noun, but a verb. It's a word that implies an action, or a willingness to act. I have found that to be true in my life. Love is not something that we fall into but it is something that we do.