a note on love.

|| [ definition ] ||

as a catholic, my definition of love, of course, comes from the Bible.

1 john 4:7-11
"beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love... beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another."

1 corinthians 13:4-8
"love is patient, love is kind. it is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. love never fails."

john 15:12-13
"this is my commandment: love one another as i love you. no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."


|| [ usages ] ||

in the west, "love" is a frequently used word. it can be heard almost everyday, everywhere. children saying it to their parents, parents to their kids, kids to their pets and dolls, girlfriends to boyfriends, boyfriend to girl friends, on tv, in songs, on the radio, loving a thing, a person, an animal, and so on. and because of its frequent usage, the word "love" has lost a lot of its values. it can be said easily. but it carries hardly any of its definition, in my opinion of course. i do believe love should be eternity and unconditional. but how many times do we say "oh i just loooove that song" or "i LOVE that dress"? do we really? when the song is old, and the dress is torn and out of fashion, do we still love them? like i said before, because of these frequent uses of the word, it has lose a lot of its value. shouldnt we save the word for when we really mean it? for those special occasions?

as a contrast, the word is used, in my opinion, too sparingly in most asian countries. a lot of asians actually find it corny to say "i love you" to their parents or their kids. and you almost never hear asians say "i love this dress", or "i am in love with so and so" in their native language. you dont even hear it that often between significant others or even spouses. (but the funny thing is that even though the word is used so scarcely in real life, it is used very often in songs) instead of "love", the word "like" is used a lot more often. and i do agree with it. because after all, it is "like" that we feel, not "love", most of the time, especially towards inanimate things. however, like i said, i do think most asians (in asia) say it not enough. i do think we should say "i love you" to our parents, our kids, and our spouses. if we love someone, we should let them know. there is no shame in love.

|| [ practices ] ||

because God is love, and we love as God loves us, the purest and most honest form of love should be unconditional and ever-lasting. we should love everyone we ever encounter because God loves every single one of us.

now, thats easy to say, but a lot harder in practice. there are dozens upon dozens of people who get on our nerves, people we dont get along, people we dont like. there are even more people we dont really know much about. it is even harder to love those who have hurt us, betrayed us.

well, we dont need to like everyone, get alone with everyone, or know everyone to love them. just keep in mind, God created them, just as He created you and me. what it means to love is to be willing to sacrifice and to treasure the people around us. even if they get on our nerves, "love is patient". even if they hurt us or betray us, "love is kind".

everything looks great on paper. but it really isnt that easy. because we are not God, and we are not perfect. but what we can do is to aim for the goal: "love one another as i love you". pray to God for the strength and the patience to love. i firmly believe that love is a decision, not a feeling.
with that said,

愛してる。
|| [ 雪子 ] ||