Some people -- especially in the courtship/anti-dating crowd -- have cautioned against falling in love. "Don't love people," the thinking goes, "or you'll keep losing bits of your heart." One such author went so far as to say that the more people you love, the less "sticky" your love is, like duct tape placed on the skin and ripped off again and again until it is useless and your arm smarts.
Painful simile aside, I disagree with this idea. We should strive toward infinite love; put another way, the more we love others, the bigger our heart becomes, increasing our capacity for loving others. And, no, I'm not promoting polygamy ... but that has much more to do with marriage than love. What I'm suggesting is that we grow in love, not fear love, and seek to ever love people better.
We're familiar with the four kinds of love: Family, Friendship, Romance, and this crazy notion of "Unconditional Love." As we exercise our heart muscle, we should find ourselves moving in the direction of the kind of love usually relegated to the divine. Ultimately, we should find ourselves loving not just our friends and those near us, but developing a heart for the world.
~Luke
Theblogogy
Luke,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with all your points on the topic of relational love.
I can't help but wonder if the concerns that the courtship/anti-dating crowd have, really stem from "romantic relationships" that started too early in that young persons life. And with the emotional fallout, they just have to be in a relationship, so as to not deal with rejection; only to sacrifice good judgement resulting in relationship after relationship. All to say, I think discernment over desire is the real problem; not too much love being poured out.
Thoughts?
Will, I think the original motivation was reasonable: Let's not have kids get hurt doing stupid stuff! But, like so many good intentions, the solution ended up not helping. We didn't teach discernment; we taught avoidance. We didn't teach love; we taught rejection. We didn't teach connection; we taught distance. And that led to bad things. I think this post -- which was really popular a while back -- does a good job of starting to poke at the problems: http://www.thomasumstattd.com/2014/08/courtship-fundamentally-flawed/ The part I found most insightful: "[The] solution involved adding even more commitment, exclusivity and intensity, the very things that lead to the problem in the first place. This is why courtship is fundamentally flawed."
ReplyDeleteSo, I would recommend pursuing love ... relationally as well as romantically. Because, as long as we're teaching love, we'll be moving in good directions. The easily confused "lust" vs "love" is another matter altogether that is certainly not fixed by keeping our distance... it just masks the problem with space.
My initial two cents.
~Luke