What I’ve Learned About Love

Here I am at 49, and for the last 11 years I’ve known True Love. And perhaps because I now know True love, I’ve also come to understand what love is not.

For much of my young and early adult life I struggled with love; what love was, what someone meant when they said “I love you.” “Love” can mean many different things to many people in so many different circumstances. One can love a great meal or piece of art, a job, or one’s cat, self, wife, friends, family– humankind, even. And then there is “being in love,” “falling in love,” “falling out of love” and so on. For years I resisted using the word at all, because I thought it was over used and misused. I didn’t trust it, or anyone who used it. Later, when grappling with the end of my first long-term relationship, I wrote out the various definitions of love in my journal as I struggled to understand what “love” was. And each word in the definition, led me to more definitions, as I attempted to parse out its meaning. I can’t recall what, if any, conclusions I came to, but feel it’s safe to say that my understanding of love is quite different and more complete, today.

M. Scott Peck wrote in The Road Less Traveled that love (genuine love) is not a feeling, but rather an action, a choice. He defined love as “…the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own and another’s spiritual growth.” He suggests that genuinely loving people will behave in constructive ways. In contrast he points out that many people possessing a feeling of love behave in all kinds of unloving and destructive ways. I see that “feeling of love” as being driven by desire, which is self –focused. Such love seems necessarily flawed, and incomplete. We desire things. So at its base level, such love, objectifies others. As Hannibal Lector said in the Silence of the Lambs, “What do we covet most, Agent Starling? We covet that with which we are familiar. We covet that which we see." It took me a long time to recognize genuine love versus everything else that society calls “love.”

And after many years of seeking (inside and out), I have found someone who loves me, completely, totally, as I love them. And from this place of Love I see more clearly the flaws in my past thinking about love, about relationships. While many of the following statements may seem clichéd or hackneyed, perhaps obvious, and quite possibly said by others far more eloquently, this is a short list of the Truth of Love (or True Love) as I know it today.

• There is no fear in Love.
• Love abides even when it is not easy, convenient, or required.
• Love encourages.
• Love requires work, and yet may at times feel effortless.
• Through love comes great joy and passion.
• Love accepts and appreciates the other rather than seeking to change them.
• Love requires discipline.
• Love requires commitment; it is a promise kept.
• Love requires sacrifice and compromise.
• Love is dependable and trustworthy.
• Love does not require agreement or consensus on all things.
• Love is active.
• Love is consistent.
• Love is safe.
• Love makes one vulnerable.
• Love does not diminish.
• Love fosters growth.
• Love does not fear change.
• Love does not control.
• Love is courageous.
• Love admits mistakes.
• Love seeks forgiveness.
• Love forgives.
• Love is giving a gift of oneself and requires accepting such gifts from others.

The above aspects of Love are present in the best kind of loving relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. It is this kind of love that nourishes us, helps us grow, that allows our best selves to come forth. I believe these aspects are also the essential basis for lasting relationships, because love based on desire alone, is often fleeting.  Genuine love isn't without great emotional intensity and passion, rather it is the foundation that makes it last.

I’ve read that fear is the opposite of love and that if our actions are guided by love (of self, others, and the union of the two) then good things will grow from that genuine love. My best self strives to act out of love…but I do not always succeed. Sometimes the fears of a wounded soul crawl out of the past and challenge me (often with faulty thinking or perception). And in those moments, when my own resources fail me, I have the love of others (and in particular my wife) to see me through. I’m thankful for the Love I share with the love of my life, and for the love of good friends.

Suppose that’s the end of my musings on the topic of love (at least for today).

Reconciling Life's Checkbook

A retread from the past (15 years ago to be exact). One step among many towards reconciling Life's checkbook, the credits and debits -- searching for the missing entry that keeps me from balancing it all out. Unforutnately, there is no Quicken for Life. [now wouldn't that make things easier?] In the mean time, I keep recalculating, searching, and remembering that life goes on with or without my balanced checkbook.



Mother and Child

Open your eyes to your humanity,
therein is the hope to find
that which is good amid the darkness.

The Child
Born of humanity, I am human, failed
and frail; the Source breaths life, I
am here.

Born of love, I am love, blessed and
beautiful, hand of the Source upon
my soul, I am touched by grace.

The Mother
I wanted everything to be right. Yet, try
as I might, I could not. I loved you so,
but it was not enough.

How often did I lose my patience, raise
my voice, lift my hand, walk out the door?

How often did you need me to hold you,
but anger stood in the way?

How often did I weep silent tears, because
I wanted everything to be right,
but could not make it so?

The Child
Perfection is not mine, not yours. I
would not have it be so.

To strive for perfection a great folly, for
perfection has little to teach.

The Mother
I wanted to give you so much more.
I wanted to teach you compassion for
others, to give you the wisdom
to see the danger ahead of you.

I wanted to teach you to love and
be loved, to show you the
beauty around you.

The Child
And so you have taught me, and I have
learned much from the lessons of humanity.

For how can I be compassionate if I have not
known pain? How can I see dangers
if I have not known fear?

How can I value love, if I have not
known its sacrifice? How can I recognize
beauty if I have not also seen the ugliness?

You have taught me that which
perfection could not.

Lessons born of a legacy, often
wrought with pain, driven by hope,
confounded by love.

The Mother
I had hoped it would be different, that
I would be different.

I hoped the lessons would be easier
for you than they had been for me.

The Child
Born of humanity, you are human, failed
and frail; the Source breathes life, you are here.

Born of love, you are love, blessed and
beautiful; hand of the Source upon your soul,
you are touched by grace.

I celebrate humanity, yours and mine.

© 1995

For My Valentine

Inspired by and for my beauty.

FOREVER

For every today, we’ll live it together.

Let's take today as it comes,

seeking the wisdom the universe offers us this day,
taking the best of what comes our way,
holding each other up in the hard times,
sharing the joy and laughter.

Together, let's savor each moment we encounter on today’s path.

For every tomorrow, we’ll dream it together.

Let’s dream of wonderful things,

of good health and laughter shared,
of moments of peace and contentment,
of sunsets and cool breezes on a summer’s night,
of holding each other close by the glow of a winter’s fire.

Together, let’s dream a life lived well together, hand in hand along the path ahead.

For every yesterday, we’ll cherish it together.

Let's always remember above all else the love that binds us;

love that brings forth our best selves,
love that lights the path in the darkness,
love that makes all that is good, better.

Together, let’s hold tight to the memories of days spent together walking along the path called life.

I thank God for every moment with you - past, present and future.

I Am

Written many years ago...but thought it an apt, if not bizzare introduction to me and my musings. When I wrote it, it was a personal declaration of independence, of my right to be me - good, bad or indifferent; to be both who I was, who I was not, and who I might become. It came at a time when I was trying to find my place in the cosmos.

I am

I am all that I am in this moment, and all that I've
ever been -- the infant reaching out for love;
I am 9 and 13 and 17 and 30.

I am my greatest moment, love, pure light. I am
compassion and hope. I am truth.
I am my closest friend; my worst enemy.

I am hate. I am fear and spite and vengeance.
I am bitter and unkind and thoughtless.

I am, because of all that I am not, was not, will not be. I am
the product of choices not made, paths not
taken. I am life without beginning or end,
confined not by birth or death.

I am the time forgotten. I am the hope unspoken.
I am the unknown truth, the dream not yet dreamed.

I am all that is infinite and eternal, limited only by
my willingness to see and hear, to accept
and act, to remember -- I am a child of God,
created in his image.