Two of my friends are ruminating on the nature and action of love.
I think there are ways in which they are both right. B. is correct in that there are many kinds of love, and love can surprise you. It can come from nowhere, when you least expect it. Kleinheider is right when he says that Sanford’s infatuation most probably isn’t love.
Since I was 17 I’ve had a test for what love is. A lot of thought and prayer went into that test, because I was in a relationship that had most of the hallmarks of love. I was convinced that the boy I was dating was the only one for me and that I loved him.
I read a lot of things about love; things in the Bible and things in magazines. Books, movies, songs, stories and poems are mostly about love and the things that pass for it for a time so it isn’t hard to do a study on the ways the world loves and thinks it loves.
The simple answer for me came down to this. The absolute perfect love that everyone is after has one characteristic. It does not destroy. There are lesser forms of love, including lust and infatuation and romance, which are all nice for a time and very pleasant. Carefully nurtured they can mature into ideal love in the way a seedling grows into a plant.
But any lesser love which destroys something cannot grow into a full and perfect love because it has destroyed. If a lust love that destroys a family is nurtured it can only go so far. If a romantic love that destroys a woman’s spirit is nurtured it will inevitably continue to destroy until it chokes her heart or is yanked out by the root like the weed it is.
I am very blessed to be in a love relationship that has had a chance to grow, to weather storms and create more love. I know how such love can be both strong as iron and fragile as feathers. But it does involve choice and work and a tamed eye. If you want a strong love that lasts longer than a season, go with the love that creates and nurtures. Avoid the love that destroys.
Slartibartfast
