A few days ago, I fell in love with a flower. Romantic fool that I am, I told her I thought she was beautiful which, of course, she is. With her tacit consent, I photographed her so you could see one of my newest passions. How could one not fall in love with such beauty?
Real Love, as Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, "never ends." This is because Love is God's eternal energy.
Romantic love, because it is born from life, will always end just our lives themselves will end, for life is the cause of death. At the same time, romance may remain so long as either partner survives.
Romance is the fire that fuels intimacy. At its height, fires seem eternal. But, fires, of course, burn out - even in the longest of marriages. What we hope is that living underneath this fire is an enduring and deeper Love which will sustain the energy of lover's after the fire of romantic passion has dimmed.
As an old man, I still celebrate the great passion that rises when we have finally meet our love. It is one of the greatest gifts of our being to be blessed with a true love - to find someone who fills our hearts to the brim and who reciprocates our deepest affections. This is the love born from meeting our so-called "soul-mate" (a once-beautiful phrase worn down by over-use.)
Artists are forever falling in love - even with people they don't know or with beings like trees with which they have the briefest of encounters. They see a flower in the form of another human & are swept away by this beauty. A few hours later, another wave of beauty crests.
Finally, perhaps, one of these beloveds is taken at the flood and the couple are carried as long as the wave endures. Their love will continue only if, underneath, there is enduring Love.
Lest this assessment sound too grim, I hope you are, like me, one who "would rather have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Caregivers are called to "love" patients every day. What is the difference between this Love and romance? The answer may seem obvious. But, romantic love and God's Love may sometimes feel the same. We may form attachments with patients that are so close we feel the sting of betrayal when the patient dies.
Doctors and nurses are at risk for this phenomena. They form deep attachments with patients only to see their patient taken by death. I have heard nurses often tell me, "My patient died on me this morning." It is as if the patient had betrayed them in the same way a lover might - leaving without so much as a good-bye.
The kinds of love we experience are often hard to sort. One word, Love, stands for so many different things for each of us.
If there is anything more important in life than Love, please let me know. No one has ever been able to name for me anything more crucial to humanity than love - in whatever form.
Love is the best and highest energy life has to offer. It is the gift of a flower, the beauty of a woman or man we love, the joy of helping a patient heal. It is loving in the face of knowing that all living things must die.
-Reverend Erie Chapman
