What is love?

This is the month where we really think about romantic love, right? I mean, there’s a holiday for it, and if you’re Japanese you get Valentine’s Day and White day… If you’re Korean there are like five holidays over the next few months… always on the 14th, always about love, of some sort.

Love, and specifically how we find love, is something I have been thinking about lately. Back in January, I read a book titled “How to Fall in Love with Anyone” by Mandy Catron. I’ve blogged about her and her writing before. She wrote the article for the Modern Love column in the New York Times based on the research where they put strangers in a room and they asked each other increasingly intimate questions… and then she experimented and did the questions with a date… and eventually they fell in love. I made a board game for Chris our first Christmas together based on this idea. We fell in love! We met Mandy last year, and I showed her the board game… she was super excited about, and called over her partner to show him. She loved our love story. Me too. Our love story was so easy and natural and just fit perfectly. There was little drama, but great admiration and respect… also, my guy is super cute, so…

But, finding (or not finding) romantic love isn’t always like that, and we go through a lot of self discovery in the process of learning how to love someone else. We bring our baggage along for the trip, and we have to face some challenges along the way. Love is elusive at the same time that it is everywhere. C.S. Lewis wrote of more loves than just the romantic, and I think this is what I’m inspired to write about today, and take it my own direction. Our culture sort of defines us by the kinds of love present in our lives. We tick forms on boxes declaring our marital status. We experience life differently depending on the kinds of love we have witnessed. We might love and we are hopefully loved in return, but not always the way we think we should be. And there’s more to the story, as there always is.

In her book, Mandy talked a lot about her parents’ love story and how she romanticized it and how so many of us put on rose coloured glasses when thinking about love. We all find our version of love somehow, or we don’t. But what are the fears that stop us from finding romantic love? I know a guy who is afraid of falling in love, getting married, and then his partner changing and becoming a stranger to him. This fear paralyzes him so much that he stays single. He is deeply lonely. Some people have looked to complete themselves in the arms of a partner. They have sometimes found their person it’s worked out, and other times they haven’t… and have then gone around feeling incomplete, when they are actually perfectly complete. Other people are so afraid of rejection that they end relationships at the first sign of difficulty. They so desire to be known, seen, and loved yet they aren’t able to be vulnerable and take the risk that things might not work out.

And then there are people who enjoy being single and find love in other forms. Or people who “love” lots of people. Or people who love love and get soaked up in the search.

I remember in university sitting around with girlfriends who lamented the lack of a guy to call their own… and I thought, hmmmmmm. I had many crushes on guys and some of them turned into relationships, many into friendships. I never felt incomplete. I had grown up the product of a messy marriage and divorce and I doubted that I would ever find romantic love because both my parents struggled to make relationships work. I thought I was going to be the cool single lady with the fun life. Deep down inside, I think I knew that I wanted someone to “do life” with, and I liked the idea of marriage and the whole package… but there was, for quite a long time, no qualified candidate. I lived vicariously through novels and movies and found fulfillment in all the areas of life where I did have love. Some might argue I wasn’t ready. I think I was just fine how I was, till I wasn’t. Truthfully, I had lots of love all around me. The love of friends and family. The cuddles of pets. The fulfillment of work. The deliciousness of life.

So, what is love? What makes it such a big part of the human experience? Why do parents love their kids so much that they would die for them? Why do we defend those we love so ferociously? Is love a bio chemical reaction we experience? Is love familiarity? Is love a choice or does it happen “to” us? Am I more loved now that I have a life partner? Am I less angsty over things and magically content? Do I have fewer fears or less conflict? Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Is my cereal less soggy? Do aches and pains haunt me less? Is grief less heartbreaking? No. Am I more me? Can I see the world with more perspective? Do I have less housework, or someone to share it with… and who does cute little dances whilst emptying the dishwasher? Can I sometimes pause the decision making in light of having someone there to “take the wheel” in my place? Do I “fit in” more to societal norms? Can people more easily put me in a box? Do (well-intentioned) friends worry less about how I am doing? Yes.

I’m a journaller. I actually have four journals. One Chris and I write together, a solo one I used to write in all the time, a writer’s journal that gives story prompts, and a prayer journal I keep at work and write in when I have quiet moments. I decided to look back in my prayer journal and a few years ago, I was grappling with whether I was “in love with” or “just loved” Chris. I knew I had feelings, I just didn’t know where to categorize them. And then, today when I took out my journal to reflect and pray, I read the bottom line… “God is love,” which is part of 1 John 4:16. This makes me think about where love comes from in a bigger sense.

I would argue that “God is love” is the beginning and end of it all. I mean, there are complexities and theologies, and philosophies, and many very detailed and systematic and chaotic perspectives on life and love and the divine. I think it all boils down to love – EPIC love. So, the reason I know how to love at all is because I am made from love and to love and to feel love from God and through people and pets and sunsets and salvation and sanctification and sacraments and all of it.

And then I think of all the hate that religious people sometimes have. I think of extremists and self-righteous pharisee-like people who cheapen God’s love by preaching law with no gospel… okay, I am showing my Lutheran stripes there… but that old song “They will know we are Christians by our love” is something I think some Christians need to reflect on. I hate the way we get painted with the same brush and I want you all to know that to me, love is really the thing… and if people don’t talk about God’s unending and relentless and undeserved love, they’ve missed the point. IMHO.

And the other kinds of love… there’s how much I love good carne asada burritos. San Diego style, no beans and rice… meat, pica de gallo, and guacamole… and that’s it. A good cuppa coffee (I am working a graveyard right now, so my coffee is all important). A crisp breeze on a warm day. A warm house on a cold day. The knowing smile we can share with friends who know us well. Zoom D&D with new friends and sometimes with family too. Playing jackbox games and chatting away with people I have known more than half my life and feeling love that only grows. Hanging out in swimming pools, lazy rivers, and at the beach with my nephews and niece in San Diego. My brother and I sitting on a small couch together holding our mum’s hand as she breathed her last breath. The excitement I feel when chatting with one of our parolees who is doing REALLY well. The compassion I feel when chatting with a guy who is not doing so well. A nice cheap glass of Naked Grape Luscious Red wine. Faith wanting to cuddle up with me when she’s scared of the dishwasher. Luna climbing under the covers with us and creating coziness only a cat can. Board games and puzzles. Good books. All this is love too. And it’s all part of the love I want to celebrate

So, this cheesy holiday that celebrates a certain kind of love, maybe think about the bigger love and all the loves you know.

That’s all (for now)