We just finished Valentine’s Day weekend so it’s only fitting that this article address love.

What is it about love that elicits us to risk our jobs, our friends, our futures, even our very lives? What is it about romantic love that it not only has its own holiday but that it can provide both the greatest joys and the worst agonies imaginable?

You’d think that a topic like love would be an easy one to write about, but this one’s wide open, which is also why I spent time on the Net looking for reference material.

Once I got past the adult sites there was actually some interesting material, and no, not on the adult sites!

I was looking for a definition of love and found some that I’d like to share with you.
The first is simple enough: “Love is a type of insanity curable only by marriage.”
The second: “Love is the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feeling by the object of the amorance.”

As a father of a 13-year-old girl, I can’t say I’d feel comfortable with the person who came up with that one dating my daughter.

In any case, there’s a long list of dictionary definitions. The problem I think is in defining love, because in our culture, love is required to be all things, to all people, all of the time.

It’s likely due to my being a minister, that I find love in personal spiritual moments or in the simple things with which I’m most familiar—moments like the many wedding ceremonies of which I’ve been a part.

All uniquely special, but the one I remember best was among the simplest, my own, which took place on a hot spring day in Waco, Texas. There were no groomsmen or bridesmaids. I, the groom, was nervous as I stepped up to altar. My bride was blushing as she proceeded down the aisle between rows filled with our family and friends from work and school.

While memorable, the spiritual moment that I want to write about isn’t of our wedding day, but rather when my wife was a new grad student at Baylor University and we had only been dating a short while. One evening she asked me to go lay under the stars to watch the meteor showers with her.

As we lay back on the blanket—she with her head on my shoulder looking up at the stars—she said to me words that I will always remember. She said she believed that when we listen deeply and without judgment that compassion arises. When we nurture, we heal. When we teach, we learn. When we do the things that must be done, contentment follows. And when we give love, love returns to us whether or not we are looking for it.

It was blueprint for the perfect, lasting, growing relationship, even if I haven’t made it so perfect. I wish I had understood it then as much as I think I do now. It would have been the perfect proposal, if she had indeed been proposing.

There were no sweaty palms and no promises of a happily ever after, and I don’t think she meant the words to be romantic. But it was a real conscious love that was later reflected in our marriage vows exchanged almost 14 years ago. I also believe that it’s the reason that our relationship still works, beyond the fact that my wife finds me irresistibly attractive.

She has taught me that our love for each other is about giving and receiving; that when you feel unheard, to listen respectfully and without judgment. When you’re afraid, to offer gentleness, so that you may know your strength. When you feel wounded, nurture with understanding and compassion. If you want wisdom, show all that you do not know. If you are beset by the demands of daily life, then do the things that must be done, without conditions or expectations, or hope of reward, doing them only because you are asked, as best as you are able, so that we may trust one another. This and so much more is what she has taught me about conscious love.

Of course we’re like any married couple, and we’ve had our share of difficult experiences. But through mindfulness we’ve come to understand that we’re responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions because no one else can make us spiritually whole.

It’s a realization that anyone can love anyone; anyone can love everyone. It’s just a matter of choice. And I did say love and not like.

Sure it’s harder to love some than it is to love others. But if we practice deep, nonjudgmental listening; if we’re nurturing; if we’re gentle; if we’re teachable; if we do the little things that must be done; then we naturally align ourselves with the Love that we call God.

In that Love I have great faith, and great hope in the unions of people who are guided in it, couples whose relationships are intentional and spiritually connected.

I would like to leave you with these words on Love from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping,
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. Love one another, but make not a bond of love.”

Amen.

Rev. Steven McClain is Pastor of the New River Valley Metaphysical Chapel in Radford.