A change of pace today. I am going to give politics and those who practice it the week off.
They aren’t going anywhere and I am tired of them and their blather.
Instead,let’s talk about love. Love?
Yes, love.
Dr. Bill Burch, my spiritual guide and preacher extraordinaire, whose efforts to save my sorry soul have been commendable but remain a work in progress, recently broached the subject in his weekly post.
He said, “Life is judged by a simple question, ‘Did I love well?’ At the end of each day, as we drift off to sleep, we ask, ‘Did I love well today?’ At the end of our lives, as we drift off to death, we ask, “Did I love well?
“How do we respond to that? As we drift off to sleep, do we say, “I’m going to bed mad and I’m going to wake up mad and I’m going to be mad all day.” Or, as we drift off to death, do we say, “I wonder if all that stuff I got mad about over the years was really all that important?”
My mother had an ironclad rule about love. The last words she and my dad spoke before going to sleep at night were, “I love you.” Nothing after that. If either were to pass away during the night, the other would remember the last thing they ever said to each other.
We sometimes toss the term around like a Frisbee. We love certain TV shows. We love weekends. We love football. We love cooking out. As for me, I love banana pudding, the University of Georgia, and anything Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia, has ever sung — but especially, “Georgia on my Mind.”
But love runs deeper than that. In the famous passage in 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said love is patient and kind, not jealous, or proud, or selfish, or easily angered. That is real love.
Speaking of love, it is mentioned 574 times in the New International Version of the Bible. Those of us who identify ourselves as being of the Christian faith would do well to read closely, including Christ’s admonition to love others as you love yourself. Easy to say. Hard to do.
According to my mail, some self-proclaimed Christians are still at the eye-foran- eye stage.
Author and theologian C. S. Lewis identified four types of love: Romantic, Affectionate, Friendship, and Unconditional (or Agape). Some other sources slice love up into seven parts, including ego, or self-love, a trait most commonly exhibited by our intrepid public servants in Washington and elsewhere.
(Oops! I said no politics today; my bad.)
I didn’t always treat the subject of love as seriously as I should. It was my very first class in college at what then was Georgia State College, now Georgia State University in Atlanta. Fall quarter; freshman English; 8 a.m.; an environment begging for some levity.
Somehow the subject was love, though to this day I’m still not sure how love fits in among conjugating verbs and present participles. Frankly, I didn’t love either, especially at 8 o’clock in the morning.
The professor said love could not be simply defined. I said yes it could, and proceeded to belt out, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” The class thought it was hilarious. I did, too.
Not surprisingly, the professor was not amused and I was asked to gather my belongings and leave.
Great. One week in school and I am about to be out of school and trying to explain to my parents that, unlike my straight-laced brother who had sailed through college, I didn’t last a month.
Fortunately, a little humility on my part, and a lot of forgiveness on the professor’s part, and I was allowed back in, where I decided to stick to conjugating verbs and participles, past and present, while leaving jokes to the professionals.
So, here I am all these years later, back on the subject of love. Wiser and more mature than the jokester in freshman English. And more serious. Today I am wrestling with the questions proposed by Dr. Burch. Did I love well today? If not, why not?
Composers Hal David and Burt Bacharach wrote, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.” And I agree. We do need to focus on loving well. After all, “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.”
And I love that we have had this conversation.
Reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough. com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.