When I think about love and celebrations of love, weddings top the list. My wife and I got married 13 years ago, after dating for 3 years. 11-11-11. We planned our ceremony carefully. This was before gay marriage was legal and we wanted our ceremony to be meaningful…not just for us but for all the attendees. If it’s always been a given that you can marry who you want to, I’m not sure you understand what it’s like when you can’t. I didn’t think I’d see gay marriage legalized in my lifetime…but it was and even on my birthday. Our wedding was a chance to show people that our marriage would be much like theirs. We just wanted to be recognized as a legal union, a legal family, with all the rights and responsibilities associated with it.
I heard P!nk say, in an award speech, that she couldn’t believe that people were spending money to ban love. She said she didn’t want there to be gay marriage, she wanted happy marriage and lasting marriage. That makes sense to me. Pretty simple. Work at your relationship. Grow your relationship. Commit to your relationship. Stay in your relationship…although I realize that is not always a safe or reasonable possibility…but when it is, stay.
Relationships can be hard. I think generally they are hard…or have difficult periods of time. They are hard because you’re bringing two separate people under one roof to live together and share a life. There’s a lot of negotiating and compromising that has to occur on a daily basis. My wife has spent the last two and a half years traveling back and forth between Florida and Colorado for work. She retired at the end of November and is now in Florida permanently. No more 8,10, or 12 week separations. It’s such a relief. But, for all practical purposes, we’ve lived separately for 30 months. That took a toll on us and our relationship. We have had to learn to live together again. To be a partners again. To be us. We had two and a half years of getting comfortable living on our own and doing things our own way. Rebuilding and growing takes effort and work. Love demands effort.
I just read a book by Martin Luther King, Jr. called Where Do We Go From Here. There’s a section where he talks about how he had chosen love because hate was too big of a burden to bear. One of my favorite quotes of Buddha is, “Hate cannot dispel hate. Only love can dispel hate. This is the law ancient and inexhaustible.” I believe that is true. I think we can see in our own country the hate that is building more hate on a daily basis. It feels dangerous to me.
Love takes effort. Hate does not. Hate is easy. It is easy and cowardly. Instead of learning about what we may not understand, we hate. Hate takes zero effort. Hate creates more hate. That got me wondering, besides effort, what else does love demand? If I declare that I love you, what does that love demand of me? What does it demand in loving my wife? What about my family? My neighbors? My enemies? My country? The earth? Now I’m not asking what any specific person demands of me but rather what does the word, the concept, the emotion, the practice of love demand. That’s the question I’m thinking about. That’s the question that confronts all of us.
Now this would be a great place for me to tell you the answer…but I don’t have one. Not a complete one anyway. Love is a verb. Love is active not passive. It’s not a place to fall, it’s something we actively create. All religions talk about love, about the work of love because love demands effort. Jesus said that we are to love our enemies and to treat others like we want to be treated. In the Dhammapada, Buddha said to consider others as ourself. He said, “Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love….Overcome anger by love, over come evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.” The Hebrew Bible says that we should love others as we love ourselves. Muhammad said that the ideal marriage bears the fruits of love, mercy, and tranquility. I think those qualities apply to all relationships. Hinduism says that love is unconditional, selfless, and without expectation of anything in return. I could keep going but it seems pretty clear that all religions speak about the necessity and importance of love.
Love is critical to healthy relationships and to our mental health. Love can heal us. Hate can destroy us. Hate is easy but it’s also toxic. Toxic to myself and anyone in the line of fire. Hate is the easy path. It’s easy to find a scapegoat to blame for any issue you can think of. Any grievance…real or imagined. Anything we don’t like. It’s always easy to blame someone else. Blame them for my lack of love. I gave X and you failed to give Y in return so I’m done with you. I have Z and you want a piece of it so I’ll remind you how unworthy you are and the hate begins to grow. If I love you, what’s in it for me? We’re transactional in our love, not unconditional. I am loving when it benefits me. If I can’t get what I want from you I leave, and if I wanted it enough, I’ll hate you for it. Hate is so fucking easy…and there are so many opportunities to hate. And sometimes I really want to…but it’s too big a burden.
Maybe love demands its own existence…understanding how crucial it is for our survival…for our own tranquility…our own sanity. Love takes effort. Love demands honesty.
Love demands that we not take things personally. Our ego takes things personally…mine definitely does. It assumes that everything happening around us is happening to us, because of us. Our ego demands we see ourselves as the center of everyone’s universe. We think that whatever is said to us or done to use is because of us. It’s personal. If we can get out from behind our ego’s perspective, we can see that what other people do is about them, not us. I am not the center of anyone’s universe…so sad. 😏 People make decisions for themselves, about themselves, and thinking of themselves. I am not saying that we aren’t able to think about others when we make a decision. Of course we can and we do…sometimes.
I heard this quote from Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., and he said that I am responsible for what I say but I am not responsible for what you hear. We have our own histories, perspectives, wounds, and agreements. Our history shapes who we are and the beliefs we have about other people and the world. Our perspective is our own point of view. And we all have stories we tell ourselves and those stories are shaped by agreements we’ve made. We were all taught what to believe and when we go along with it, that becomes an agreement we have made with ourselves. The agreements that we incorporate into our lives shape everything we do and believe.
We made the agreements, essentially contracts with ourselves about our beliefs. We made them and we can break them. We can make a new choice. I think love demands wise choices…evolving choices. Love takes effort. Love requires honesty. Love demands that we not take things personally. Love demands a bigger view…one without me at the center.
Maybe love demands love…demands love from me. Love toward myself and toward others. Those who are easy to love and those that are difficult…even those who seem impossible. Maybe love demands a wish. May we all be filled with all the love our hearts can hold. And may we freely give our love out of our abundance. Because in the end, all that matters is how we love people. So let’s love deeply and generously.
Kai Raines 