I believe it safe to say that 'everyone' is familiar with Romeo and Juliet, at least the popular version where Mercutio sports a mini skirt, and everyone has guns! But there are other love stories just as powerful and endearing. I love Eric Clapton's Layla(aaaaaaaa!!!), and I was curious about what inspired the song. It is loosely based on the story of Layla and Majnun, an ancient Arabic love story where a well born young woman and a nomadic herder fall in love, but are not allowed to marry due to local custom. Layla is married, and Qays(aka Majnun) goes to the desert where he becomes insane and is called 'Majnun-e Layla' in the Persian version which means Layla's Madman. A poet put these words into Majnun's mouth,
"I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It’s not Love of the houses that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those houses"
-attributed to Qays bin al-Mullawah
I enjoy this sort of mushy story, and I am a hopeless romantic of sorts. I do try to hide this as best as possible(I have to keep my tough guy image ;). While we may not kiss walls,at one point or another, we have felt similarly. Love has a strong effect on us humans.
These and other love stories have a long history that stretches back to Roman times where Ovid wrote the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. These stories of course have strong effect on those who read them. Love stories are powerful for those who believe in love as an actual thing (and amazingly, even for those who believe it to be merely the expression of so many chemical reactions in the human body). Whatever you regard it as-intoxicating emotion or mere biochemistry-love seems fickle, and so powerful that it has often been associated with madness. Which makes some sense, how many young couples swear by their "love" and get married or what have you, and a few months later, they can't stand each other. Where did all that love go?
The most deceiving thing about the 'in love' experience is the perception we have of becoming less selfish. This is described by Dr. Scott Peck,
"...the temporary collapse of the ego boundaries that constitutes falling in love is a stereotypic response of human beings to a configuration of internal sexual drives and external sexual stimuli..."2
Now before you throw rocks at me and poke me with sticks, think about it. How does the in-love experience begin most often? With a look, hence love at "first sight". Of course how there be love at first glance if love is something unfailing? Surely there is attraction at first sight, but there is no love there. When I see a girl I find attractive there is no, "man I wish I knew her better" or what have you, there is a, "man she is so fine! Do you see her bro?!" I know nothing about her, at this point we have no relationship, so my attraction to her is basically sexual in nature. This doesn't mean that sex is the aim here, it may or may not be, but it is a big piece of this basic attraction that eventually(hopefully) love will come out of-not to say that Love is born out of sexual attraction, but rather, sprouting from the relationship and knowledge of the other person. The in-love experience deceives us in this regard. I think Gary Chapman says it well when he writes,
"We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was-a temporary emotional high-and how to pursue "real love" with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of will and requires discipline , and it recognizes the need for personal growth."
Self loves deceives us into believing that we altruistically seek to love someone else; as if by doing so we granted them a favor, when in reality our self love desires to be loved itself.
As a Christian I have always believe that the greatest love is self sacrificing love;
"the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends."
John 15:13
My mother frequently told me she would, "Jump in front of a truck to push me out of the way" when I was young to illustrate the strength of her love. This scared me to no end as a child, "No mommy stay out of the street!" but I understood it at a base level. But how many times will we have to place our lives in the place of someone else's? Will we ever have the chance to take a flying leap in slow motion while we histrionically scream "NOOOOO-O-O-O-O-O-OOOOOO!" and take the bullet just in time? Hopefully not once. So how is love to be viewed, what does love look like, does it indeed last forever or is it only a passing thing that we should take advantage of and drink deeply from before it leaves us broken behind it?
"You Shall Love"
I wonder if we set ourselves up for failure when love itself dominates the relationship. When I say 'love' here I am really referring to a set of feelings that we have for a person, the beloved.
Some seem to live for the "in love" experience. That feeling of total bliss,
where nothing matters but the beloved. You can't get anything done because you are thinking
about them, you think of them and just float away into 'Lovesville', which is of course right next to 'Happytown'.
But 'Brokenheartsville' isn't far away either.
Why are their so many break up songs? It doesn't get more emotional than those songs (without slicing your wrists). Obviously something more is needed than the "love" emotion. Lasting love is disciplined and volitional. It is not spontaneous because it is commanded, and so it is a duty.
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself"
-Matthew 22:39
Duty is a part of love. That is, to love is a moral obligation.
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is a command, this is a duty to be fulfilled faithfully by every Christian. This duty to love is directly linked to "the eternal", and so it does not change. While every other may blossom, this love does not because what blossoms must die. May I also digress a moment to point out that this duty to love is not for a beloved alone, but for 'neighbors'. Everyone around us. The limit of spontaneous love which holds a particular beloved in mind and heart is that,
"...such love is merely transient; it merely blossoms. This is precisely its weakness and tragedy, whether it blossoms for an hour or for seventy years-it merely blossoms; but Christian love is eternal." -Works of Love
Love as duty is disconcerting to many people. We seem to be caught up in the "poetic enthusiasm" of spontaneous love. We all want that crazy romance that catches us off guard and just flings us headlong into love! And yet we want this love for ourselves(and so this desire for love for ourselves reveals itself as a selfish love unfamiliar with Christianity which declares of love "it is not self-seeking"). Such a desire, and such a love, is not focused on the beloved but it is a deceiving self love. It seeks another self to love itself. Love as duty answers this question perfectly. You see, the command to Love does not do away with self love, but puts it in its correct place, much as glasses do not take the place of the eyes, as Kierkegaard explains,
"...if one must love his neighbor as himself, then the command, like a pick, wrenches open the lock of self love and thereby wrests it away from a man...This as yourself does not waver in it's aim, and with the firmness of the eternal it critically penetrates to the innermost hiding place where a man loves himself; it does not leave the slightest excuse or the tiniest escape hatch." -Works of Love
Scripture itself assumes that we love ourselves, and we are commanded to turn that strong love of self outward towards the rest of the world, this is a sacred duty of a Christian, "to love is duty. You shall love-this, then, is the word of the royal law."
Love is a duty, a (conscious)habit of virtue that must be chosen everyday. The in-love experience where we are totally obsessed with the beloved may be an illusion, but love is real. We must sacrifice the inner love of self so that we may able to demonstrate love to those external to ourselves, including other people and God.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
-I Corinthians 13:4-8,13
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