Love

It has been the favorite topic of bards and idiots throughout history.

We imagine it will make us feel like we've never felt before. It will carry us off to new heights of happiness and unending bliss. We envision the day when Hollywood's magic will strike in our backyards. Even those who say we're committed to "courtship" (whatever that means) dream of falling truly in love, for the first time, with THE ONE, the only, "God’s best."

Then come the not-very-inspirational testimonies of rejection, misdirection, and pain that seem to inevitably haunt human interactions in a fallen world. None hail these stories, but I suggest they tell us more about love than the romantic successes in which we all revel.

You see, love isn't encapsulated in the heat of a first kiss or the never-to-be-felt-again excitement of that first high school or grade school or college crush. I won't say the heart pounding, head-spinning, giddiness has nothing to do with love. Most of us apparently wish for it, and it seems like an important part of the journey toward something more mature, but love is perhaps most evident when it encounters the poor, the ugly, the evil, the misguided, and the unlovely—and redeems them.

You'll see love when you see the patient way your mom cooks another meal. You'll recognize it when your dad wipes your vomit off the bathroom floor without saying a word. Love's what motivates a friend to confront you with your hypocrisy. You'll see love when you look at the cross.