Yesterday was Valentines Day. Whoop-de-doo! Looking back, the highlight of the day was spending time with a collection of other [mostly] single people who are comfortable about being single. In fact except for a bunch of jokes between friends, the day passed without the normal kind of ‘valentines day pressure’ that one learns to expect.
This morning an interesting idea occurs to me: The search for intimacy can as easily be about fear as it can about love.
I see the two as opposites. In the words of Michael Leunig:
There are only two feelings, Love and fear:
There are only two languages, Love and fear:
There are only two activities, Love and fear:
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results, Love and fear,
Love and fear.
With regard to relationships, we get worried, slightly concerned, some of us get desperate, because we feel like we have a narrow window of opportunity to find a life partner. We are afraid that we will wake up aged 40 and find ourselves alone. We fear we will never find someone who understands us and who stands by us, we are afraid our plans wont all turn out.
None of that has anything to do with love. We can love people without needing to possess them. We can find companionship in good friends. We can find love and understanding in God. While we’re all moping around waiting (or searching frantically) for our significant other, we seem to get distracted from the job of simply loving other people.
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Bravo!