When we speak of love, of what do we speak?
What do you think or feel love means?
It has always felt like a word in need of a definition.
‘Love is all you need,’ sang the Beatles, and it may be true, but what exactly is it that I need?
I have seen a father destroy the lives of his family, and one of the children say, ‘I still love him obviously – he’s my dad.’
Or boy meets girl and on their third date, he says, ‘I think I love you.’
Or someone says, ‘I love a walk on the beach!’
While others speak of God’s love, when evidence can be thin on the ground.
As one believer said to me, ‘If this is God’s love, I’m glad he isn’t annoyed with me.’
When we speak of love, of what do we speak?
Iris Murdoch said, ‘Love is the difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’
I sense it’s a good starting place.
It isn’t getting hysterical, emotional, lovey-dovey or dewy-eyed. It’s not reaching for the stars.
But it’s giving us a place to start, which is probably what most of us need in relationship to love, which is fairly unknown territory for us.
And for all its lack of ambition, this is a love that would radically change relationships at home, work and play.
It’s a good feeling to be acknowledged as real by another; it can be life changing.
One liberating aspect of this definition is that it removes possessiveness from the word. So often in relationships, love is another word for ownership.
‘I love you so much – and I will destroy you if you leave me.’
Or another word for dependence:
‘I love you so much – I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Or another word for obligation:
‘Of course I love her – she’s my nan!’
Instead, we simply allow someone else to be real – separate from our self and our needs.
It is love for beginners. (There are no experts.)
We listen again: ‘Love is the difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’
We ease away from the small world of our ego, just for a moment, and give existence to another who isn’t us, but who is quite as real.
