#love

Don't be confused; just know that love will confuse you.

The word comes out of my mouth often. I say I love you to Ellen. I also say I love Chipotle, and I love potato chips, and I love Christmas, and I love sleeping in, and I love Jesus, and I love it just in general speaking.

Surely you realize that I do not love Ellen the same as I love a bag of chips. Or love the feeling of sleeping in the same as the magical feeling of Christmas. And so I do wonder how difficult it is for a child to grasp the concept of love. I feel it would be like someone learning English to differentiate reed, read, read, red. (I need to read the red book you read yesterday about the reed.)

I wonder at what point children feel love. They learn to say the phrase I love you because of the repetition from mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, aunt and uncle, but I wonder how truly they believe that phrase; I wonder how love develops. We are born with the capacity to love, just as we are born with the capacity to do much of anything, but at what point do we realize our experience of love? I cannot remember in my life the point at which love made sense, and yet I know that it did (and does).

My point in this meandering is that love is confusing when expressed by mere words, but it’s pretty obvious when actions are involved. Are the people around you, those ones closest to you, able to differentiate what love means to you? Would a foreigner (non-English-speaking) be totally confused because they see the way you are with your wife, hear the words I love you, and then watch you woof down a pizza exclaiming I LOVE THIS PIZZA! (Because they should believe you are having a love affair with that pizza.)


DC Talk has a cheesy little song called Love is a Verb. That right there is the equation for love. Do. Simple. Not easy. Simple. Do. Because love does. (The phrase Love Does is ripped off from Bob Goff. Sorry Bob... and hopefully you don't need royalties from that because I am not sure I can pay. However, next time you are in Houston I'll chauffeur you around; we’ll barter royalties.) Love really does.

Now let's trip back to the love of a child. Think about the simplest form of love you have ever seen. I would imagine the majority of us think back to a child- unscathed by the world- doing something seemingly unimportant for someone who is in dire need. I think back to a photo that I saw in an exhibition one time. The scene looked like something of a funeral. An old man was sitting slumped over with his hands to his face in grief. A little boy, maybe 3 or 4, was standing with his forehead head touching the old man's forehead. He had one hand on the old man's shoulder as to say: everything will be okay. We are all familiar with the imagery of children acting in a selfless manner to make sure that people feel love. This is the key: love doing is a selfless act, it's pure and without ulterior motive.

I don't know when children realize their capacity to love, but they sure do understand how to give it without selfish ambition. They have the simplicity of life. They don't have a clear model of manipulation quite yet, and so love to them is in its purest form. If we can love like a child, then we are accomplishing much in this world--but even more in heaven. 

So as I reread through my thoughts and add my final touch: I believe I have a lot to learn from Adam. He will be teaching me a lot about love. (And non-coincidentally: a lot about the originator of love: God. Because God is love.)

Dear Adam,

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, Trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. 1 Cor. 13: 4-7

I cannot wait for you to teach me what all of this means.

Love,

Arguably the Best Knock-Knock Joke Teller in the World