Defining the undefinable

I have spent a large portion of my mental powers over the last oh, 15 years or so, trying to come up with a good definition of love. For some reason I have never been able to accept that it is just a feeling. I deal best with absolutes, so naturally something as undefinable as love belongs in a defined little box, right? umm, not so much. I would love it (no punning) if it worked that way but it doesn't.

The best definition that I came up with was putting another's needs before your own. However, that doesn't always quite fit the bill. As I have gotten older and expanded my horizons I have found that love is a great deal more than that. I used to classify it into, love love, sibling/parent love, friend love, you know when people say "I love him like a brother, but not like that." What they are really saying is "I do not find you particularly attractive and I would rather not mate."

In case you haven't guessed, the second section of the Road Less Traveled is on love. So why do we think we fall in love? We don't fall into it, we fall in attraction, but that doesn't sound nearly so blissful. The fact is that we choose to love. When the rose colors of the honeymoon time fades, we choose to love our spouse, or not. I am so grateful that I was never naive enough to go full out for the "O, I'm in love!" gushy kind of thing. I knew when I was dating David that this was it. It was our second date and on the way home I realized I was leaving for college in three weeks and I cried. I could not imagine leaving him. A little off topic, but you get the idea.

M. Scott Peck wrote two things about love that really struck me. The first is his definition of it:

"Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth"

Love is not physical. It isn't even about the physical body. We had love before we came here and got our bodies. Love is a spiritual thing. Our bodies don't love, our spirits do. For some reason this seems profound to me. We are surrounded by a culture that focuses entirely on the physical attraction that precedes love and they call it love. It is so easy growing up with books and movies and tv shows to have a warped view of what love is. Thankfully we also have the gospel and the only example of perfect love in our Savior Jesus Christ. He loved us. He was willing to sacrifice Himself for the spiritual progression of all His siblings. That is love.

"Love is an act of will"

Christ didn't just wish he could help everyone. He didn't love us up to a point. He gave His will over to our Father in Heaven. Love is not a spectator sport, it's not passive. When we love, we show that love by our words and our deeds. I am always reminded of the end of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In the Return of the King, where Frodo and Sam are struggling up the mountain, exhausted beyond words, and tired, and scared and knowing that they will probably die soon. I cannot recall if the words are in the book ( I only read it once) but the movie is very powerful. Frodo stumbles and Sam who knows he cannot carry the burden of the ring, carries Frodo the rest of the way up. It moves me every time. That was love. Love prompts us to do amazing things, or really simply barely noticeable things. It doesn't matter if what we do is grand and heroic or quiet and simple. What matters is that we do it. That we choose to act on our love for another.

Clearly Sam and Frodo were not married, nor were they related, so I am most certainly not speaking of married relationships here. Every person out there has someone they can love if they choose to. I used to think when general authorities would get up and say how much they love all of us, that that just wasn't possible. They don't even know my name, how could they profess to love me. I think I am starting to get it more now. They love me simply because I am. They are doing their jobs everyday as an act of will to help my spiritual growth.

This is fascinating stuff, I just barely started section two of the book, there will be more . . .