Love

I have taken long thinking about this one. For my reader who expects the 1 Corinthian mode, there is bound to be failure and complete disappointment. I have tussled with the idea for as long as ever and have come to the usual agreement that this is one thing that cannot be explained. Each human being has their own view of what love is and at times we come with the most clashing ideas of what life's greatest force is. Love has been defined in the most strange ways. It is referred to as a feeling of liking someone, as a thing that is in action and not n words, as a way of showing affection to another person, sometimes, it is referred to as sex, one of the most base definitions of love, I think. Love is so many things and as D.H Lawrence once said, we've really made a mess of the concept of love.

Now, an ardent reader has been looking forward to my definition of what love really means. Other definitions have looked at the concept from the view of what it is and what it is not. They seem to be defining poetry from the view that it is not prose or drama. This is a very simplistic definition if we say Love is when you do not hate somebody or when you do not have a dislike of a person. I disagree with such definitions because they never give the true picture of the issue we are dealing with. If you think this is the best way to define love, then you are damn wrong about the whole issue.

Love to me is a concept. Many of my friends have always seen the pessimistic side of it. I have seen people who have not been happy in their relationships and it hurts very much. I always tell such people that if they loved, they would have had a way to deal with the frustrations that plague their relationship. So did you love some one or do you love them, I always ask. It is a complex situation when you know that loving someone means being tied to them for good. When they do the worst od things you are willing to forgive them whatsoever. This is truly tested love.

Love is probably the greatest test we have as human beings. It is a time to get to know the people we are dealing with. It is a time to let the past go and move on with the person we have chosen to love. It is the moment we realize that feelings are far away from the picture and the reality sets in. Feelings, I have always believed move from the point of illusions. This is why I do not believe there can be such a thing like love at first sight but there can be oceans of infatuation at first sight.

As we grow up, we draw from the relations that others have had. We learn how to copy things that others have done. I have always taken a lot of interest in the courtship period of developing relationships. This is because it is the most stormy of all periods in our self discovery. I have always told people that once one moves through this period with a clear head, they are bound to have the best of a marriage relationship. It is an amazing thing that this is the period when we find out the best about the people we are dating. Unfortunately, marriage opens a different door and all of a sudden the truth dawns on us. If we believed the best about the people we were courting, then we shall sail through the storms of the reality that faces us when we see the truth about them. Love, I have been told believes the best about everything until proven otherwise. This is the patience Paul talked about yet we are always willing to believe all things that come in our ears. Interestingly, we believe most of them even when they are a pack of lies. I have never let such things draw my attention and have failed to find out if I love or have failed to learn the art.

Now, one beautiful statement I have heard... Falling in love, Whatever this means. But we've grown up with the expression and cannot do anything about it. Do people grow in love or do they fall in love? We learn from Adam and Eve. Did they fall in love? In Africa, love was learnt in marriage and people did not know their marriage partners till they were married. Were they very unhappy people? We cannot assess anything from them but can always see each generation as a result of a love union. Love then is a complex concept. Even Paul's definition in the Bible shows a man who was overwhelmed by the whole concept and so had to get adjectives to describe it.

The best definition of love is however found in God. God is love and whoever loves then knows God. This may strange but it has a whole world of truth in it. When Paul tried to explain love, he forgot that he was describing the very nature of God. In his definition, he opened to us the truth about the God we serve. He also let us to the reality of the Person we serve. If love is God, then we know how God behaves towards us. Love is not just sex and so much reading that we get into. It is not just the actions we pretend to let ourselves into. it is a whole world of experience in which we let God take over and move within us so that whatever we do lets people realise that God is working in us and we are working for his kingdom. I always appreciate the far that God's brought me. I also realise I have to emulate Him despite my weaknesses. But, I also learn that despite my limits, He still remains love. God is love and Love is God. That's my definition of love. Nothing can ever change that fact.

Nice reading and lots of love to all my readers. God richly bless