Ramblings - Published October 2022
This Months Ramblings from David
October 2022
The series of Ramblings has concluded. Recently we have been reviewing a number of the subject areas covered. This month we look at Love.
Love
“Love takes up where knowledge leaves off” Thomas Aquinas
There was a time I use to think love was a fanciful dream of starry eyed girls at school. Even after I left school, I was pretty sure love was something people chose to believe in but was a figment of their imaginations, albeit something that was experienced. However, there were so many people who talked about love, I had to accept that there was maybe some substance to it. What love was, was a question that I considered from time to time, but mostly it was not a thing that I thought was part of my life. I had too many other good things to do. Every day was full of fun and too much excitement for me to be distracted for even a moment about something as weird as that ‘mushy’ thing they called love.
It is clear to me now that it was the assumption of what love was, which was the thing I didn’t have in my life. For some reason I had never connected the use of the word, in the bible for example, with the thing, I assumed as an adolescent, others were talking about. Love is a word. A word that seems to defy any precise definition. The broad palette of textures, tones and descriptive devices it embodies would lead to consternation in someone, such as an alien, who wished to learn the language but had no comparable word of their own. We don’t actually need to look to alien life for this example. I was once in conversation with a couple who worked translating the New Testament into, mainly, languages and dialects from Asia. They were confronted by a number of issues but never more challenged than when they were making a translation for a Papua New Guinea tribal dialect. The tribal dialect had no word for ‘Love’. This presents a significant issue when translating the Gospels. They eventually settled on a word for a recognised gesture of a father with open arms. When I heard this story, I wondered if the people who had no word for love, knew love? I arrived at the assumption that they would know love, unless ‘love’ is purely an invention of language. Without a word for love, would love be an unreferenced part of every day living, or would there be countless more words to describe the myriad that the word is used for?
My schoolboy self would possibly be shocked to hear me say this; Love exists. Exceeding the limitations of language, love itself is real. As real as the air you breathe. As real as the peace of good company. The word love however is exactly that; just a word. It is not the entity within which true definition lies. It is more like the window in language, used at times, through common consensus, to mean something that resides in an accepted 'pool' called love:
The love of God. Love thy neighbour. Love of the world. Love maths. Making love. Love to be happy. Love of a child. Love nature. Love unconditionally. Love a good read. Feeling the love of a crowd. Love at first sight.
What we call love, what the word love is used for, is to describe a strong feeling; an experience of something. The origins of which could be seen to have come from places within, and the existence that exists all around. Instigated from, or by a source, or balance of sources, that spur the rising of, or appreciation of, the thing that then gets wrapped in the descriptive term of love.
“Where there is love there is life” Mahatma Gandhi
If we take the Bible as our example, the words within are made by people. Different languages and cultures would see differences.
For example, a passage talking about a fathers love for a child says, “If your child asks for bread, do you give him a stone instead? Or if he asks for a fish would you give him a snake?”
In some cultures, a snake is a delicacy and so distorts the message in the language. So what does that mean to the understanding that the Bible is the word of God? The Bible does contain the word of God. The Bible is held by many as a text that is special and is often used, in reverence, as words for special understanding and moments. Many passages are written by people through whom God has spoken. Words that are levelled to people of a time and a place, through time and in places. When God is in the words, the depth and meaning far exceeds that of the restrictions of language. An enforced understanding from a religion hierarchy can, in some cases, reduce the wonder of the word for individuals who are in a different place than those to whom they are looking, attempting to deliver their measured interpretation.
Love thy neighbour – a well known line from the New Testament. What does it actually mean? Do we, as individuals, love through more action and intention or do we make a thing we call love? Is it the same love or unique to the moment and individual? It is a combination of many things that seems to allow the greatest feeling of love. Where there is trust, where there is peace, honesty and acceptance, the feelings of love grow quickly. As though the rivers in the minds eye are freed by what is being looked at and can see a deeper resolute truth, allowing a pleasing unchecked flow.
If the word of God is seen as an act of love, the love of God will be what people are looking at when with the text. The meaning may be quite literal to the individuals intellectual interpretation, but to greater or lesser degrees will be personal to their own uniqueness. However, there is a lot more to a person than just their own consciousness. The window created by the word of God, the love of God, offers a chance for each of you to see and experience views that words alone could not possibly contain; with views through to a most wonderful place. This is not the be all and end all of that connection with God. The word is more than things that are written. It is massive. There is a love in the life of the world.
The subject of love, the love of God, is open to eternal interpretation and celebration. The inability to understand it is most likely because we never can and never will. That in itself is a reason to be happy and all the more reason to enjoy it; it can’t be knocked, broken down into elements, analysed, tested or measured. It is not a science based phenomenon and can not be tainted by analysis.
Despite my younger self not believing love was a ‘thing’, I now see that for me to have been so happy and thrilled each day, love, the love of God, the love of family and friends, the love of life, was at the heart of the life I was enjoying and continue to enjoy. It supports, upholds, strengthens, allowing joy and playfulness to be foundations in living. Not all parts of life experience hold the same joys, but there is not a moment that serious moments are not better dealt with when bolstered by a joyful heart; there is no life worth living without love but no life can exist where there is no love - it is the foundation.
Previous ramblings can be found in the archive. Click the link: Ramblings Archive
