What is Love?

I had my catechism class with students from Kapayapaan reflect on the definition of Love. What is love? What is the best definition for it that encompasses the love of man and of God? We abound in so many definitions of the most sought after value in life. Perhaps our own shortcomings in defining it reflect on how much we have misunderstood it. The multiplicity of its definition may also reflect our own confusion and our helplessness in really making love our own.

I take Scott Peck's definition of love as the better than the rest. I stumbled upon it when I was reading The Road Less Traveled. Scott defined it, in a nutshell, willing the good of another. You can read his definition from this Wikipedia entry. Here he distinguishes love, not as a feeling, but a willing. It is an active volition for another's good.

I like the definition because it transcends the popular notion that love is a feeling. For if indeed it is a feeling, then it must be fleeting and temporary as all feelings are. But love stays and commits itself through the years, at best for a lifetime and eternity. It is not driven by hormonal changes but an active decision and indeed it is so.

Transcending further this psychological definition, I echo what the Church has always said, that Love is a Person, in the face of Jesus Christ. For man to know what love is, he must reflect and contemplate the life of Christ which is a complete, perfect, and exemplary testament of superlative Love. Not all men can accept this definition if one has no faith and faith is a gift. But in believing so can we truly see the real nature of Love that has ever since escaped and evaded our best definitions.

I Fever

Ever since I met the "post modern" word and its friends "egoism", "self-actualization", and "self-centeredness", I have become conscious of how I begin my journal entries. Have I used "I" again as I begin this entry? I leaf through the pages of the past days, and, whoa, most of them begin with "I". This would be excusable since it is my journal entry. What if I begin everything with the "I"?

I, here I go again, get tired of people always talking about themselves. The conversation becomes boring and heavy when it could not go beyond the Me-Myself-and-I topic. Talking to people who cannot stop talking about themselves is like being sucked into a black hole. You just want to get out of it. We Filipinos call the most obvious ones as mahangin, but there are those who are more subtle. They start the conversation about something which slowly and silently spirals towards themselves. Yikes! It's pitiable because it is symptomatic of a low self-esteem or the non-acceptance of the self for one two always need the assurance and affirmation of other people.

People, and that includes you and me, are more self-centered now more than ever. We all have this level of self-centeredness, for it is natural to us, but it stinks like fish when it becomes selfishness. Are we not too pre-occupied with our self-image? Businesses capitalize on this in the multi-billion dollar enterprise of cosmetics and fashion. We have to go back again to the True Center of everything.

Silent Symphony

A symphony is heard in the distance

But the strings are untouched

The reed lay silent

And the baton lies still

The music plays inviting

It brings along peace

But the crowd is agitated

Like angry buzzing bees

Yet the hall remains silent

Claps from a pair of hands

Fill the empty stage

The silent music fades

A man longs to croon

Not a sound escapes his lips

In vain he tries pitifully

But his shouts remain mute

But the symphony increase in pace

His heart beat conducts

The still air stirs a little

While dust gather on the keys

Passersby walk deaf

But music fills the hall

Strings resound the walls

And the music goes on