On Love

Sometimes people argue that we wouldn't know what joy is if we didn't know sorrow. Usually, I think those people are idiots. Well, maybe "idiots" is the wrong word. Perhaps they're more like masochists. Maybe they actually like pain, and, for them, pleasure is all about pain.

Whatever the case, I usually don't put a lot of stock in whatever those people say because, well, I don't like pain. Not one bit. I mean, on a much lighter note, there are people who wonder if Christmas feels less like Christmas for me because, where I'm from, there's no snow at Christmas. I always say, "Of course it feels like Christmas. I don't even know what a white Christmas is like because I've never really had one." In truth, there's no real comparison between these things. I just want to seem like a reasonable person, like I'm actually trying to understand the other side.

But, back to pain and suffering. The thing is, I don't agree with people who say that without sorrow we wouldn't really know joy because, when I'm feeling joy, I very rarely contemplate the immense sorrow that would be its opposite. I mean, I really don't sit there, in the midst of a joyful moment, and think about something really sad. I just enjoy the moment. That's all. In truth, I'm overjustifying because I feel like I'm completely wrong.

Maybe it's that I can't really speak to the difference between joy and sorrow. I guess I can really speak to the difference between anxiousness and calm. I'm normally a very anxious person. This shouldn't be a surprise if you know me, really. But, there are times when I feel completely at ease, completely calm. And, the thing is that in the midst of those calm times, I feel and really know that what I'm feeling is something quite different. I guess I can't answer if I would know what calm is if I didn't know anxiousness because there's never been a time when I didn't know what both of those feelings felt like. But, I can tell you that I know how good calm feels and appreciate it more than I would if I didn't know the feeling of anxiousness.

You know, it's that feeling of being completely aware of how peaceful you are at one moment and catching yourself in the middle of that feeling of peace. If you've known anxiousness as something that can consume you, you will never again take peacefulness for granted. You will seek it out. You will want to have peacefulness as much as possible because the alternative is, well, quite terrible and quite painful, causes much sorrow. Now we're back to the opposites of joy and happiness.

So, if I know how good it is to live without pain and anxiousness and sorrow, you'd think I'd try to maintain the good feelings and minimize the bad. You'd be right. Don't we all do that? I mean, save the bravado of youth that lets us feel as if we can plunge head-strong into situations that will surely lead to heartbreak, don't we all seek to minimize our pain, limit our suffering, keep ourselves safe? That seems a good enough plan. Why diverge from it? Why not keep ourselves as safe as possible; why not guard our hearts so that they will not be broken?

I guess the answer to that is that we just can't. And, in some ways, I'm not sure that we should. You see, it is when we are most vulnerable, most unguarded that we learn the most about ourselves and about others and, often, about God. It's only when we open ourselves up to the possibility of a little pain, a little lack of comfort that we really become able to love. In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis puts it quite beautifully:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

And, it's true. When we shut ourselves off from people, we may be safer, but we fall victim to ourselves. Over time, our lives become focused on one. Our thoughts become focused on one. Our everything becomes focused on one. It may be that our hearts will not be broken; it may be that we are safe from the changeable moods of another person, but we do not have the possibility to love. We do not have the possibility to care, to interact, to see joy and growth in another person's life. And, lacking these interactions, we become devoted to one. Devoted to ourselves.

It seems that Lewis is calling us to understand love as selfless. And, knowing a bit about Lewis, I'm guessing his model of love is based largely on his belief in God and his belief in the redemption offered through Christ's sacrifice. If we think of love in relation to Christianity, it becomes something which requires sacrifice. Because if we think of the ultimate expression of love in Christianity, I think we always have to return to the image of the cross.

And, in turning there, we see that love really is a death of the self; it really is something that's represented in the ultimate gift of life; it is something that is open to pain and even welcomes it because it is through pain that there is the possibility for hope, for rebirth, for new beginnings.

So, I guess we can protect ourselves. Lock ourselves away and remain safely in some hermetically sealed and unreachable realm of the heart and mind, but I think we should not. After all, if we didn't know the pain of love, the ultimate heartbreaking sadness it can bring, would we really appreciate its joys? Would we really understand the redemptive love of Jesus if He hadn't died on the cross? I don't think we would. And, thank God, we'll never have to know what life would be like without that gift, without that love.