Thursday February 10,2022
I wonder if anyone will send me a Valentine’s Day card next week.
My dog would, I’m sure – if she could sign her name. These days, she could probably get away with using the tap feature on my credit card to pay for a Valentine card.
Until her last year, Joan and I got each other Valentine cards every year. Admittedly, it was sometimes a last-minute matter, when the choice of cards was, well, rather limited. But we did it.
The card was more symbolic than seductive. I didn’t need a card to know that Joan loved me; I trust the same held true for her.
I haven’t actually made a Valentine card since I was in school. Back then, a card from Dorothy meant only that she had drawn my name out of a hat.
In reality, I’m sure, Dorothy thought of me as a boring math geek. True love was not on her mind.
Which makes me wonder what true love really is.
The stages of love
Back in those younger days, I suspect that love was mainly hormonal. A form of reciprocal escalation of emotions. You turn me on; if that turns you on, it turns me on even more; which turns you on, which…
Erotic attraction, if it lasts, can turn into an infatuation with the other person. Which we call falling in love.
Perhaps “falling” is the key word here. We feel helpless, out of control, swept along by forces beyond ourselves. Like falling off a cliff, we can no more stop, back off, than we can deny gravity.
Ah, yes, I remember it well…
When does infatuation turn into lasting love? I don’t know. I’m only sure that if it doesn’t turn into something more lasting, infatuation will cool. Freeze. Maybe flip into its opposites – impatience, intolerance, even hatred.
If you fall in love with falling in love, you will go looking for another infatuation. And then another.
A lasting love, I think, becomes something more like a friendship. That sounds so flat, so humdrum, when I write it. Ho hum, are we still together?
No, not that. Many friendships come and go, depending on one’s health, hobbies, and employment. Lasting love, I would argue, matures into the kind of friendship that doesn’t depend on physical attraction. It becomes a commitment -- whatever you do, you want to do with this person.
And if that’s not possible, because this person eventually loses some capabilities, mental or physical, you still want to have this person involved. You can talk with each other about your separate interests. You can share enthusiasms. And memories.
Especially memories.
And pain.
Because at this level of commitment, you’re willing to suffer with and for each other. To set aside your concerns for yourself, for the sake of the other.
“For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health…” Those traditional marriage vows don’t have to be formally promised before a preacher. With or without a ceremony, they have to be lived.
Love is much more than lust. Much more than living together. Much more than having a joint bank account.
And much more than sending a sentimental Valentine’s Day card.
Although a card might be nice, just the same.
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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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Your turn
I’m sorry. I sent my main computer to an Apple shop for some rehabilitation. And all the letters about last week’s column on the many ways we use rhyme and alliteration and other devices to help us remember are on that computer. Not accessible for about another week.
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Psalm paraphrase
Here’s a paraphrase of Psalm 1.
Do not pursue happiness;
it cannot be captured.
Like a wild bird or a bouncing ball.
it is always just beyond your grasp.
Happiness comes from immersing yourself in God.
Instead of struggling to keep your head above water,
yield yourself to the deep flow of God's universe.
You will not drown.
You will be swept along by forces beyond your imagining.
Foam on the surface gets blown around
driftwood piles up on sandbars
people obsessed with themselves
end up as rotting debris on the rocks
But the current rolls on.
So let yourself get carried away
by something stronger than a social eddy.
You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalms available from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.