Fast day 17--what is love?

"but I do love you," he says. She cocks her head and thinks, then you have a funny way of showing it.

I am not so sure it is easy to define what love is, but I think it is very easy to identify what love isn't.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says, "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

How many times have you had the thought, "I am in love with person," and had that followed up with a sick feeling of pain in your gut? How many times have you said, "I love him," and then suffered intense jealousy that he was giving directions to a pretty girl?

The proverb says something along the lines of, "you can't love anyone else, if you don't love yourself." I always thought that was so stupid. How can anyone tell me that what I am feeling is not love? I know what love is.

I was wrong.

As I have grown into understanding myself, into loving myself, I have a whole new appreciation for love.

Ram Dass speaks in his talk on Cultivating the Heart of Compassion, that love all too often comes with attachment. That we as a humanity believe that love should come with attachment. Except that all too often, attachment is a problem. We are attached to this romanticized version of what love is and when it doesn't meet our expectations we have pain. We get angry, we get jealous. We need love to feel fulfilled.

I looked for that love from outside of me. I needed anyone and everyone around me to show me love. If they didn't love me, I was the biggest loser on the planet. I was attached to feeling love. But it had to come from outside, because I couldn't make it happen on my own.

When I started to see myself, and started loving myself, I realized that I didn't need anyone else to make me feel like I was valuable. When they showed me love it was great. I cold accept it with out needing to categorize it or figure out what it meant.

When I started seeing myself, if someone was disappointed in me, or mad at me, it hurt, but it didn't beak me. I didn't feel worthless. I knew that it was something that would pass. I recognized that I can't make everyone love me and that is okay.

I have discovered that the love I thought was deep and passionate and special was really selfish, shallow and fake. Now that I know what it is to really love, I can't imagine how I thought that something that caused me such pain, could be healthy.

I am not sure that I could ever explain what it feels like to experience real love with actual words, but I can say this...real love underlies the painful stuff, but if the pain is involved, it won't last...not without doing some serious self evaluation anyway.