Before we were so rudely interrupted by most of life, I was starting to explain the nature of everything;-)
Not really…but rather meditating, reflecting, and ruminating on what is marriage and what is love?
Ruminating means in the 1530s, "to turn over in the mind," also "to chew cud" (1540s), from Latin ruminatus, past participle of ruminare "to chew the cud, turn over in the mind," from rumen (genitive ruminis) "gullet," of uncertain origin. Online Etymology Dictionary. Rather a strange action to do when considering marriage and love, unless one is a cow, maybe.
So we need to be gentle with ourselves and others, and not become too legalistic and jottled (as in obsessing on every jot and tittle) like so many are doing of late when considering this hugely important topic.
Love is such an empty -bucket word that it means almost everything and anything and nothing.
That is why I had us look at the denotative meaning in Part 2.
Now onto the nuances and the connotative meanings…
#1 Love of Things: I love pizza, blackened salmon, my Chevy van, Mountain Dew, my HP computer…
#2 Love of Places: I love Hawaii, Huntington Beach, Sierra Nevadas, Grand Canyon, Yosemite…
#3 Love of Activities: I love to play basketball, backpack, travel, write, take pictures…
#4 Love of Animals and Plants: I love our cat, dog, hamster, lizard, roses, Redwood trees, Palms…
#5 Love of Groups: I love Book Club, the meetinghouse.com, America, humankind…
#6 Love of Infatuation: I love a person I am attracted to but don’t know well…
#7 Love of Admiration: I love rock stars, sports figures, historical heroes, theological leaders…
#8 Love of Self: I love myself (in the sense Jesus meant, caring for, not in the selfish or egotistical
sense)…
#9 Love of Family: I love my dad and mom, my brother and sister, my aunt and uncle, my cousins…
#10 Love of Friends: I love ___________, a buddy, companion, comrade…
#11 Love of Affection and Physical Desire: I love touching, feeling valued, experiencing passion…
#12 Love of Romance: I love one friend and she loves me, so much we like to spend deep time together…
#13 Love of Commitment: We love each other so much romantically that we want to/will to spend the
rest of our lives together in a covenantal commitment…
#14 Love of Altruism (sometimes spoken of as the Greek word, agape): I love all people, even those
different from me, even those who hate me—like Jesus said to do in the Sermon on the Mount and when
he forgave the Roman soldiers who had invaded his country, tortured, and now were executing him on a cross….
#15 Love of the Ultimate: I love Truth, Justice, the Principle, Goodness, Love, Reason, God, the Divine...
And, of course, there are also distortions of most, if not all, of these forms of “love”…
Distortions and Twisted Versions of Love:
#1 Lust: When a person wants to treat another human being as an object to be used…
#2 Obsession: When a person fixates on another person, idea, worldview, or thing to the exclusion
of everyone else, treating them as an idol to worship or abuse…
#3 Polyandry/Polygamy: When a person thinks he/she can have an equal/humanly ultimate relationship
with more than one other person for life…
#4 Divorce: When a person who commits to a covenant for life with another person betrays his
relationship…
#3 Perversion: When a person twists and distorts what is true and good and right and loving…
#4 Pride/Egotism/Nationalism: When a person thinks he or his worldview or his group is more
important than anyone else…
#5 Idolatry: When a person substitutes himself, others, groups, an idea or thing in place of
Ultimate
Truth/God/the Divine…
As is obvious, we are going to focus mainly on the #13 version of love in this series of articles,
but other types of “love” will probably crowd in, too.
To Be Continued…
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
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