Falling In Love

By: Kelly

According to society, falling in capital-L love is the equivalent of having a magical spell placed on you. Being In Love is seen as a force as omnipotent as the Holy Spirit itself. Love swoops down on you and fills you with a sense of blissful peace and certainty, changing your life forever. Except, just as it is with the Holy Spirit, love is more about believing and accepting than it is about anything else. The power comes from your thoughts and feelings and what you choose to do with them, not some ethereal presence.

Sometimes you fall in love very quickly but more often than not, it happens so gradually you didn’t even realize it is happening. Sometimes we fall in love because we desperately want to and sometimes we fight it tooth and nail. How can all of these things be possible? Because love is nothing more or less than the sum total of thinking and feeling. This means that there is no single uniform force called “love”. Everyone approaches it from a slightly different perspective. As Chuck Klosterman, author of Killing Yourself to Live says,

"…I have never understood the concept of infatuation. It has always been my understanding that being ‘infatuated’ with someone means you think you are in love, but you’re actually not; infatuation is (supposedly) just a foolish, fleeting feeling. But if being ‘in love’ is an abstract notion, and it’s not tangible, and there is no way to physically prove it to anyone else… well, how is being in love any different than having an infatuation? They’re both human constructions. If you think you’re in love with someone and you feel like you’re in love with someone, then you obviously are; thinking and feeling is the sum total of what love is. Why do we feel an obligation to certify emotions with some kind of retrospective, self-imposed authenticity?"

His point is, love is completely subjective. And that isn’t sacrilegious. Some people will say, "Love doesn't exist!" just as they say the Holy Spirit doesn't exist. I would say, you're right. There is no actual thing called love just as I personally don't believe there is an actual Holy Spirit. However, I would quote the best line in any book ever (Dumbledore in HP#7) and say, "Of course it's happening inside your head but why on earth should it mean that it is not real?"

Because love is subjective, it means we have power and control over our own lives. It means that if a relationship doesn’t work out, there is a chance to get back out there and find love again. If we take it back to the Holy Spirit analogy, some people seem to welcome the Holy Spirit into their lives every single Sunday. They mess up every week, beg for forgiveness, and start anew. As long as they are still capable of believing and accepting the Holy Spirit, they can do it as many times as they need to. Love is the same way.

However, just as the most zealous churchgoers tend to be the ones who are “saved” again week after week, the people who worship the idea of being saved by love fall in and out of it so often. Just as people are quick to criticize those Christians that are fickle in practicing what they preach, it tarnishes the name of love to use the word so carelessly. We should be sparing with the word “love” so that we know it actually means something when we do use it.

Most people would be horrified to know that I can’t remember the first time my boyfriend told me he loved me. But guess what? I don’t remember the first time I told him I loved him, either. For us, it wasn’t necessary to make this grand profession to one another. We showed each other through our actions and after a while, the L-word just naturally slipped into our conversations from time to time like it was the most obvious thing in the world that we love each other. We never say “I love you” before we say goodbye. Because it is implied in everything else we say and do. I don’t need him to reassure me that he thinks I’m beautiful and that he loves me, or any of that other crap because it emanates from every look and gesture. As Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows through it.” So for the love of Love, don’t wear it on your sleeve.