I question
what my ideas of love are daily. You see, from the time I was a little girl, I have
had the narrative of what love looks like handed to me in its neat little
doctrinally sound package: Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.
Again, I
question what love is daily.
Is love all
these things that this well-known scripture claims it is? Or furthermore, can
love betray all these things and still be love? Does love fall on its face
again and again, betraying all the things it claims to be and still be every
bit as authentic as it is in its perfection?
Is love only
love when it is all these things, or when
it does all these things? If I am
unkind or easily angered by someone, is it true that I must not love that
person in that moment? Is it true that love must have many kinds of bi-polar attributes
to it? In other words, is love either switched on or switched off at any
given moment, depending on the action of the individual who claims to love
another (or not love another, respectively)? But my question goes far beyond
this, and I wonder if I may even be thought foolish to consider my questions. Can
love be authentic even when it plunges into the negative? Can love be
authentic even in the betrayal of love itself?
I don’t even
know what I’m saying. All I know is that my whole outlook concerning the nature
of love is being deeply challenged. It would appear that love is not all the
things that it claims to be, but maybe even exactly the opposite.
Love, it
would seem, never perseveres and always fails.
But it doesn’t
make me seek to find it any less.
