SOLID LOVE

To love someone at all times is not easy. To learn to love is a life’s work. It requires everything of us. Love challenges us every day.

Sometimes when I walk on the beach I come across a heart scratched in the sand, with the names of two people entwined in it. The next day the impression has been erased by the tide. Love should not be so easily destroyed. Relationships are precious to us. They affect our deepest emotions. Our greatest joys come from fulfilling relationships of love, and our greatest sorrows come from the ending of those relationships.

We have been created by a God whose essence is love. We are made in his image to have relationships of love with one another. Jesus said that the most important commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Therefore, we fulfill the purpose of our creation when we love God and our neighbor in this way. But that is easier said than done. How do we go about it? What does it mean for me today to love others? How can I do it? That is the subject of this book.

Zygmunt Bauman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the University of Warsaw, characterized the present age as ‘liquid.’ In his book “Liquid Love” he describes post-modern relationships as lacking commitment. Relationships are fluid, they are not trustworthy, they are unlikely to last. The meaning of the word love has been devalued. Sexually it describes a passing experience rather than an enduring affection. One-night stands, hooking up with strangers, are talked about under the code name of ‘making love’.

Love is seen as a skill, a commodity in a consumer culture that can be acquired at little cost to the customer. Like availability of credit, casual love takes the ‘waiting out of wanting’. It is a fast food that satisfies immediate need but can affect your long-term health if that is your only nourishment. People become disposable. Like unwanted gifts they can be returned or exchanged for a new and improved version. Partnerships are not expected to last for a lifetime. A relationship is an investment, and like a stock, you hold it as long as it promises to rise in value, and sell it when it begins to falter. The relationship only lasts as long as it produces value for you.

Living together does not require a down-payment, there is less mortgage to repay, and the length of the repayment is less daunting. There is no commitment to future kinship. All options stay open. Unconditional commitment ‘till death us do part’, for better for worse and for richer and poorer is seen as a trap that needs to be avoided at all costs. Temporary ‘we will see how it works’ cohabitation means that you are only as good as your last encounter. You are at the mercy of constant evaluation. You have surrendered your assets to your partner, and are subject to emotional blackmail. Survival is tenuous. Such liquid love is unstable. When the tide of ‘love’ runs out there is a feeling of being used, of being depleted, rejected, of having failed to please. All there is to show for the experience are disappointed hopes.

This is also the case for serial marriage – the marriages that do not last but end in divorce. Many times such a marriage is doomed because one of the partners is not prepared to grow in solid love for the other. Instead of the relationship being affirming and life-giving, it is characterized by hurt and abuse.

Lack of solid love also affects having children. Starting a family is delayed until it is convenient. A baby has to be wanted! Children may bring joy but they also can threaten your career. You may have to choose between having a baby and achieving your professional ambitions. Love of your neighbor (in this case your baby) may compete with love of yourself – and are you not supposed to love your neighbor as yourself?

In contrast to this modern conception of love as liquid, the Bible proposes a love that is solid. It is meant to endure all vicissitudes: love never ends. If God is love, and we are made for love, then love may be described in all its dimensions: length, height, and depth. Solid love is greater than ourselves. It requires concentration, thought, effort, willpower, motivation, and application. Learning to love is the task of a lifetime. It is a challenge to grow into maturity. It is the journey to wholeness. It is the struggle of unselfishness over self-centeredness. It is hard, for our self-absorption, our ego, our sinfulness, has such a tight hold on us.

Soren Kierkegaard expressed the character of love in many of his writings. He eloquently articulated the importance of love:

“What is it that makes a person great, admired by creation, well pleasing in the eyes of God? What is it that makes a person strong, stronger than the whole world; what is it that makes him weak, weaker than a child? What is it that makes a person unwavering, more unwavering than a rock; what is it that makes him soft, softer than wax? — it is love!

What is it that is older than everything? It is love. What is it that outlives everything? It is love. What is it that cannot be taken but itself takes all? It is love. What is it that cannot be given but itself gives all? It is love. What is it that perseveres when everything falls away? It is love. What is it that comforts when all comfort fails? It is love.

What is it that endures when everything is changed? It is love. What is it that remains when the imperfect is abolished? It is love. What is it that witnesses when prophecy is silent? It is love. What is it that does not cease when the vision ends? It is love. What is it that sheds light when the dark saying ends? It is love.

What is it that gives blessing to the abundance of the gift? It is love. What is it that gives pith to the angel’s words? It is love. What is it that makes the widow’s gift an abundance? It is love. What is it that turns the words of the simple person into wisdom? It is love.

What is it that is never changed even though everything is changed? It is love; and that alone is love, that which never becomes something else.”