What is love? It’s a strangely-avoided question.
We use the word often enough. But what is it we speak of when we speak of ‘love’?
I have a confession: I have never liked the word and have always held back from writing about it. Yes, I have been a little avoidant. Some of my issues with the word are undoubtedly my issues. But the main cause of hesitation has been its relentless mis-use and degradation; from the cloying sentimentality and disingenuous declarations to the prescribed social norms which cling to the word. We’ll get to those.
But maybe a good place to start in our reflection is to note what love isn’t. If we can see what it isn’t, we might have a clearer idea of what it is.
In the old days, the negative of the photo was part of the package – the negative and the photo. And the negative, of course, was the opposite of the true image. It was the true image inside out. And I think that’s quite a helpful way into love. If we can see what love isn’t, if we can see it inside out, what it actually is becomes clearer. From the negative appears the true image.
In the 1970’s, WH Vanstone wrote a wonderful book called ‘Love’s endeavour, love’s expense’ and in it he offered three negatives, three marks of false love.
Love that has limits is not love: When love is conditional in some way, when love is sometimes withheld or sporadic or experienced inconsistently. ‘You have my love today but tomorrow? Well, we’ll see how you behave or how I feel. Who knows?’
Love that seeks control is not love: when love requires control of the object of its love, it is false love. ‘I will love you if you do what I say – otherwise, punishment.’ True love is activity not for my sake, but for the sake of the other and about another, so it is always precarious, with no assured programme. There’s no five-year plan for love. It lives only in the present precarious moment. Control is the last thing available to true love.
Love that is separate is not love: True love cannot be separate from the loved. The one who loves surrenders their wellbeing into the hands of another; no longer separate from their experience. If I say ‘I love you’ then my aspirations are tied to yours. We are islands no longer. This makes love very risky. No wonder it’s so rare. Who wishes to be tied in this way?
So, transactions that are conditional, controlling or separate are not love. They are attachments, and may be powerful…but let’s not call them love or the word means nothing.
And after reflecting on what love isn’t, after wandering though the nettles of dysfunction, we can begin to glimpse what love is.
False love has limits, so authentic love has no limits but begins afresh each day.
If false love claims control, true love is precarious and without control.
If false love offers condolences from behind a wall, true love is vulnerable and connected and open to the other.
If asked to define love, I’d say ‘vulnerable openness to one self and the world’.
This is the spring from which all aspects of love flow, whether divine or human: kind self-knowledge reaching beyond itself.
And I wish to hold divine and human together. I want to hold on to the truth that human and divine love are essentially the same substance.
Sometimes when preachers speak of God’s love, they get effusive, surfing on hyperbole. You’ll know the sort of thing. ‘God’s love is broader than broad, wider than wide, quite beyond the measure of the human mind! We cannot begin to conceive it. It utterly surpasses human love, transcends it. Here is something altogether different from human love! It simply cannot be compared, such is God’s love for us!’
But if it cannot be compared, why are we using the same word?
We know why preachers do this. They do it because in human relations, in the world we inhabit, what masquerades as love is often something quite different; often what is described as love fails to ring true, feels hollow. We’ve touched on this. And I’m sure you have experienced it.
You’ll know the sort of thing. Sometimes when someone says, ‘I love you so much’ they mean, ‘I need you so much.’ And need brings demanding baggage.
Or, ‘Mummy loves a good boy.’ The unspoken message: ‘If you’re not a good boy I’ll go silent on you for three days and see how you like that.’
Or, ‘I love you to eternity’ which sometimes means ‘I want to control you forever’. We note the husband who didn’t let his wife or kids go in a car with anyone but himself, ‘because I love them too much to risk their lives with another driver.’
Or listen to Karen. In her opening line of our meeting, Karen tells me, ‘I love my mum to bits’. Within fifteen minutes I hear how her mother, a spiteful woman, tried to run her over in a tractor. Karen was an alcoholic by the age of thirteen to escape the emotional pain of the relationship. Sometimes we use the word ‘love’ because it’s expected, because it saves us looking too closely at a relationship; especially a family one. ‘Of course I love her – she’s my mum!’
So yes, there are a few nettles on the way as we ponder love.
But I still wish to hold human and divine love together, because they have the same roots, the same substance, the same essence. Our own expressions of this love might be rather frail and occasional, mine certainly are – but it’s the same substance.
As I say, if asked me to define love, I’d say ‘vulnerable openness to one self and the world’.
This for me is the spring from which all aspects of love flow, whether divine or human: kind self-knowledge reaching precariously beyond itself.
Love is a bridge between these two realities, between me and beyond me. And daily we ask: how can I build this bridge today?
We are familiar with love as a feeling: love for our dog, our partner, our football club, our dad, our favourite music, our pot plant, our children etc. Valentine’s Day is built on love as a feeling. We are invited ‘to get in the mood’.
We are also familiar with love as action: the act of giving food or money or time; the act of listening to someone or sending a card or offering a hug or visiting them in hospital or saying, ‘Well done!’ Love as action.
But maybe first and foremost, true love is a state: the balance between an inward-reaching awareness of myself and an outward-reaching awareness of others.
‘I exist, they exist – how can we bridge this gap today? What sacrifice or what transaction is helpful?’
In true love, I continue to exist. It is not love if I allow you to treat me like a doormat; if I don’t feel I can ever say ‘no’. This is not love because I have ceased to exist in the relationship, ceased to be open to myself and my own needs. I seem to exist only in meeting your needs.
But neither is it love if I am the only story; if people only exist for me in as much as they are meeting my needs. I may be charming; but I charm you for a reason – to get what I want or need from you. Control has many guises; and one of them is the creation of dependency. And this isn’t love; this is needy entitlement or insecure narcissism, which cannot truly see or feel anything or anyone beyond itself.
‘I exist, you exist, we are different. So, how can we bridge this gap today? What sacrifice is helpful? What transactions will bring life?’
We will need to make friends with ourselves; this is probably the starting point in the journey to love. We do need to be good friends with ourselves to love freely in the world.
If we are a safe and pleasant place for ourselves, that is a fine springboard for authentic love beyond.
You’ll have your own understanding, of course. Simone Weil said ‘Love is the accurate estimate of need’. It’s snappier than my definition and brilliant in its way.
I wonder what your definition is?
And beyond the definition, I wonder how you feel able to receive love and how you feel able to offer it?
