Real Love?

"Love is an affection of the soul, not a contract:

it cannot rise from a mere agreement, nor is it so to be gained.

It is spontaneous in its origin and impulse; and true love is its own satisfaction. 

It has its reward; but that reward is the object beloved. 

For whatever you seem to love, if it is on account of something else, what you do really love is that something else, not the apparent object of desire.

St. Paul did not preach the Gospel that he might earn his bread; he ate that he might be strengthened for his ministry.

What he loved was not bread, but the Gospel.

True love does not demand a reward, but it deserves one.

Surely no one offers to pay for love; yet some recompense is due to one who loves, and if his love endures he will doubtless receive it."

Last week, I watched my best friend marry the woman of his dreams. Wonderful ceremony. Great cake. Also, I look good in a tux. But I digress.

But the one thing I'll remember the most about the whole wedding will be their eyes. Being the best man I had the best view possible, a front-row seat to see just how intensely the bride and groom looked into each other's eyes, like they were cameras absorbing every inch - every exact detail - of each other, so that the memory could be perpetually hung on the walls of their hearts and minds. They had waited with patience and prayer and foresight for 2+ years just for this moment and you could see it in their eyes.

I was affected. God had already been challenging me to question my notion of what love was, but that day was probably the catalyst for my introspective restructuring of what love should look like for me. 

I had to ask myself: had I ever loved anything in my life so intensely? So intensely that I simply couldn't move my eyes away, almost too afraid to miss a moment?

Sitting in Starbucks, I read those words above, written by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux some 900 years ago. I asked myself this time: do I know how to love like that? Not out of what I can get out of the person loved, but simply out of a love for the person?

I'd love to tell you that an epiphany came to me, like an angel descending from heaven, awakening my heart. 

No such happy ending. Yet. 

But at least I'm asking questions, challenging my idea of what true love is, which is more than I think I've ever truly done.

Parting thoughts, courtesy of Snow Patrol's "Engines." May we all find a love that can only be discribed in abstract similes.

I know I love you like the silvered gold of dying days

I know I love you like an ancient history brought to life

I know I love you like the sunlit water on your skin

I know I love you like the million times I never said

I know you love me like the silence of the turning earth

I know you love me like the endless roar of modern life

I know you love me like the laughter and the kissed-back tears

I know you love me like the past, the now, the coming years

Until next time, friends. Live loud, take chances.

Blogging Again

One of my new year's resolutions: write more. Simple, right?

As part of that, I've decided to start blogging again, not because I have this delusion that people will read it, but I feel like my brain has so many ideas swimming around in it that just need to breathe, just pent-up words and thoughts asking for a voice.

I'm aiming for one post a week.

 Please criticize. Please encourage. Please read.