The notion of being happy while loving despite not being loved back is alien indeed to Simpson’s notion of violence as love. Yet many would agree that love depends not at all on the other person’s response. As Johann von Goethe put it, "If I love you, what business is it of yours?" And Alfred Lord Tennyson’s quote is certainly the most famous on the subject, "’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Anne Morrow Lindbergh concluded, "Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me."
In I Corinthians 13: 7-8, St. Paul reinforces the notion that love is not about what comes back to us, but what comes out from us, in that love "Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
Would it make a difference in our lives, and in the world, if we in fact could develop a healthy understanding of love? Mother Teresa saw the lack of love as a major cause of despair, saying, "Pray also for the people who have suffered so much not because they are hungry for bread but because they are hungry for love."
In I Corinthians 13:1-3 St. Paul writes that real love is, in fact, the one essential thing. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
Note that I Corinthians does not say that we are nothing without love (which might lead some of us to violence) but that love is the motivation that makes all things significant. "Love is, above all, the gift of oneself," said Jean Anouilh. James Thurber emphasized the long-term experience, "Love is what you’ve been through together."
Learning to love, then, in it’s truest form, promises us not that we will necessarily be loved back, but that the act of loving itself improves our lives. As John Dryden put it, "Love is love’s reward."
Article by Harlan Jacobsen. Harlan has been writing numerous articles and series on successful single life for 30 years that appear on the Internet and singles newspapers. For more articles on single life subscribe to the Country Singles E- Newsletter by sending a blank e-mail to: cosi-subscribe@topica.com or by going to http://www.countrysingles.com or http://www.divorcerecovery101.com
