Love Hurts

Absolutely nothing new or original in this post. Even ripped off the title. All has been expressed thousands of times in hundreds of ways and thought of silently by millions. Probably billions. Perhaps by everybody. But I'm one more who has been pondering and I feel like writing it down.

Love is pain. Well, it's not exactly equal. But to know one is to know the other. Love is the essence of being human. It is the thing we live and work and die for above all else. But as wonderful as the experience of loving and being loved is, and as highly vaunted and valued it is, it is a passing, ephemeral, fleeting thing. Some seek it all their lives and never do find it.

The prospect of love surrounds and haunts us all our lives. We may try to ignore it, devalue it, live without it, but there is no escape. Childhood, friendship, courting, marriage, parenthood, old age. It's always floating around. All too often just out of reach. For every fleeting moment of joy, comfort, pleasure, satisfaction, there seem to be interminable days, weeks, months, and years of loss, agony, and ache. But to choose not to love is tantamount to choosing not to be human. I have long thought that creativity most defines us as in the image of a creator God. But that is second to choosing love and choosing the inherent vulnerability that is part and parcel to it. And the virtual guarantee of pain and sorrow for it. This is what makes us a reflection of God's image who chose to love and to suffer. Perhaps this is what “sharing in the sufferings of Christ” is all about. Not some rarefied spiritual state that only a few attain to. Not crawling up stairs on bleeding knees. Not seeing stigmata appear on one's palms. Perhaps it is just the simple decision to love instead of hate or ignore, and to choose to take on the hurt.

So love we must. Even if we are all alone. To decide not to is to debase oneself to the state of an animal. And that is very possible. I sense that the city I happen to be in at the moment has attracted a good many in that condition. I look down from my fifteenth story perch and my heart is heavy for them. And for the many other loves of my life.