What is love?
As another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, I have once again experienced that intriguing mix of conversations and ideas that surround the day. Some people express thankfulness for the loved ones in their lives, while others reflect on those they have lost. Some enjoy not being involved in romance, free from any obligation to spend money, while others wish that they had someone to shop for. An often-cited idea is that Valentine’s Day is nothing more than an excuse for companies to make money off displays of affection. I watch my floor-mates as they fight over women who appear on The Bachelor every Monday night and play the campus-wide game of “Who Has a Crush on Who?” At the end of it all, I feel that the emotion at the heart of the holiday is anything but the focus. What defines it? Is it a fuzzy feeling in the heart? Trust? Hospitality? I consulted a variety of sources to build a picture.
I first went to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, which provides many definitions. They include, but are not limited to, “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, “…affection and tenderness felt by lovers,” and “affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests.” Through delving into a bit of philosophy, one can learn that the Greek thinkers divided love into four main categories: storge being protective love, eros being physical passion, philia the platonic affection of friendship, and agape the unconditional love of God. Thus, Merriam-Webster and Greek philosophy intertwine in that they both define love by how it can be interpreted. An interesting facet, to be sure, but to definitively answer the question, a catch-all response seemed to be a better goal.
The second source consulted was poetry. A poet could certainly express a definition for love in their writing—perhaps in a way that is both down-to-earth and general. On the website for the Academy of American Poets, I came across a beautiful piece by James Russell Lowell, titled Love, which says in part,
True Love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthen ware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray…
Lowell seems to be expressing a true and timeless sentiment: love is humble and simple. True love is always present, even when life is rough and unexciting. It is about connection—being together with others for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health… The only thing missing is a down-to-earth approach that anyone can understand. As I wracked my brain to find another source, I realized that there was one that fused the interests of both a dictionary and poetry: one that has transcended eras to become the best-selling book of all time.
Within the passages of the Holy Bible, written in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Corinthians, was the definition of love that I had been searching for. BibleGateway.com quotes it from the New International Version as such:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.
Love never fails. – 1st Corinthians 13:4-8
There it is—simply put and beautifully written. Love is best described in the sense of a virtue: qualities, not faces or expressions, are what can define it best. Love is not outlined by how much one can buy in a store, how a person finds it, or whether its statement is clear or implied. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity for all of us to remember the true definition of the emotion we value so highly. Whether the love is past or present, received or longed for, it should all be judged by a plain and universal standard such as scripture. That is the best way to keep the true spirit of Valentine’s Day alive.