“But before you go, I wanted to ask you something—” he said with a catch in his throat. He was reeling with a torrent of sweet memories that had lately turned bitter and hurt him so. He swallowed and looked pensive for half a moment before looking her in the eye: “Did you ever love me?”

She could see the pain in his eyes, the hurt, even the anger; she understood. “Yes,” she said; “I loved you, to the extent that I knew what love was.”

Change the genders around if you like; it’s often the same. I submit to you that if this (fictitous yet, I would imagine, altogether familiar) former couple were altogether honest with themselves and each other, the answer she gave wouldn’t need to be qualified so.

Astronomically speaking, the most accurate, most correct way to ask for the time is to ask, “What is the current sidereal hour of this day in terms of time zone relative to Greenwich Mean Time, specifically as the radioactive decay of uranium-235 is measured at their official laboratory by highly precise instruments?” But by that time, the person you were asking has furrowed his brow and begun to walk away, blinking and looking around for witnesses should you try anything shady.

Someone I knew once argued with me heatedly and at length, deep into the night, as to the nature of love and whether one could ever be truly “in love” more than once, whether having (truly—let’s assume we’re not actually completely confusing lust and love here) loved someone was an impediment to loving someone else in the future, and all the rest. This rested on the insistence of this person I knew that it would, in said person’s opinion, be “better” for their lover to have slept with a thousand members of the opposite sex than to have loved even one. I think this is based on a fallacious idea of love. You can even find part of our argument, from days and weeks later, in the Forums, regarding God’s will and marriage.

I have for the sake of what I thought was peace denied the love I had for some for the benefit of one; but I doubt that it was necessary, if only I were able to explain what Love is all about. Love is not overzealous dedication to one person to the exaltation over a relationship with God; it is not tainted with selfish gain; it is not only shared between lovers proper; and it is not even giving of one’s own morality and humanity to save another from him- or her-self. All of that involves selfishness and setting oneself up above Christ, seen properly. That kind of love was not God’s best by any means, and it was not any kind of reflection of how Christ loves the church.

Long ago when I was young and unjaded, I used to confess to that kindred spirit of mine, at every subsequent church retreat we’d go to together (he at my behest), when I was crying in my bed for his salvation, talking with him, pleading with him to accept Christ–”I have more faith now than I ever have. I realize now that what I used to have wasn’t even faith at all, really!” And he’d answer tenderly, but bemused—”But Michael … you say that every time!”

When we were children, time was whatever the clock said. Then we learned about time zones. Then we learned about leap years and Daylight Savings Time. Then we (some unfortunate ones of us) went and pulled our hair out over some astronomy class at USC and learned about all the rest of the aforementioned nonsense. Same thing with love. Love is a feeling of Mom’s arm around you when you skin your knee—then it’s an act of the will like you learn in Sunday school, where you do something nice even though you don’t want to—then it’s a highly nuanced and largely painful process of dying daily to self that involves both the will and the emotions over the course of an entire lifetime of commitment to another’s best interests.

Thus, while “Affirmative insofar as I knew what love was” is perhaps the most correct answer to us when we ask if a lover Loved us, it doesn’t make sense to split hairs and I think it might cheapen it. Married, we’ll look back on this and laugh, if we’re not drinking so deeply of our lovers not to look back on it at all. Just like, when we get to heaven, we’ll look back on even our fondest, dearest, most self-sacrificial moments in holy matrimony, when the Spirit was singing most clearly through our hearts to the weary ears of our dear spouses—and almost scoff to think that we actually believed that was what Love in all or even most of its fullness looked like.

---

I have for the above explanation been accused of “believing in love.” Admittedly, I rankle at the idea, not of love, but “believing” in it—I get visions of Anne of Green Gables along with every dead-wrong Romantic poem and saccharine excuses for having sex (”I know it’s wrong, but we just love each other so much, it just feels right!”) dancing in my head. But I suppose that I do believe in love, in the sense that I believe Christ died on a cross for the sins of those who loved and would love Him “because He first loved us;” and, to put it more concretely, in the daily love of two imperfect people doing the best they can to submit to Christ and [1] love each other, bad breath and all.

“But before you go, I wanted to ask you something—” he said with a catch in his throat. He was reeling with a torrent of sweet memories that had lately turned bitter and hurt him so. He swallowed and looked pensive for half a moment before looking her in the eye: “Did you ever love me?”

She could see the pain in his eyes, the hurt, even the anger; she understood. “Yes,” she said; “I loved you, to the extent that I knew what love was.”

Change the genders around if you like; it’s often the same. I submit to you that if this (fictitous yet, I would imagine, altogether familiar) former couple were altogether honest with themselves and each other, the answer she gave wouldn’t need to be qualified so.

Astronomically speaking, the most accurate, most correct way to ask for the time is to ask, “What is the current sidereal hour of this day in terms of time zone relative to Greenwich Mean Time, specifically as the radioactive decay of uranium-235 is measured at their official laboratory by highly precise instruments?” But by that time, the person you were asking has furrowed his brow and begun to walk away, blinking and looking around for witnesses should you try anything shady.

Someone I knew once argued with me heatedly and at length, deep into the night, as to the nature of love and whether one could ever be truly “in love” more than once, whether having (truly—let’s assume we’re not actually completely confusing lust and love here) loved someone was an impediment to loving someone else in the future, and all the rest. This rested on the insistence of this person I knew that it would, in said person’s opinion, be “better” for their lover to have slept with a thousand members of the opposite sex than to have loved even one. I think this is based on a fallacious idea of love. You can even find part of our argument, from days and weeks later, in the Forums, regarding God’s will and marriage.

I have for the sake of what I thought was peace denied the love I had for some for the benefit of one; but I doubt that it was necessary, if only I were able to explain what Love is all about. Love is not overzealous dedication to one person to the exaltation over a relationship with God; it is not tainted with selfish gain; it is not only shared between lovers proper; and it is not even giving of one’s own morality and humanity to save another from him- or her-self. All of that involves selfishness and setting oneself up above Christ, seen properly. That kind of love was not God’s best by any means, and it was not any kind of reflection of how Christ loves the church.

Long ago when I was young and unjaded, I used to confess to that kindred spirit of mine, at every subsequent church retreat we’d go to together (he at my behest), when I was crying in my bed for his salvation, talking with him, pleading with him to accept Christ–”I have more faith now than I ever have. I realize now that what I used to have wasn’t even faith at all, really!” And he’d answer tenderly, but bemused—”But Michael … you say that every time!”

When we were children, time was whatever the clock said. Then we learned about time zones. Then we learned about leap years and Daylight Savings Time. Then we (some unfortunate ones of us) went and pulled our hair out over some astronomy class at USC and learned about all the rest of the aforementioned nonsense. Same thing with love. Love is a feeling of Mom’s arm around you when you skin your knee—then it’s an act of the will like you learn in Sunday school, where you do something nice even though you don’t want to—then it’s a highly nuanced and largely painful process of dying daily to self that involves both the will and the emotions over the course of an entire lifetime of commitment to another’s best interests.

Thus, while “Affirmative insofar as I knew what love was” is perhaps the most correct answer to us when we ask if a lover Loved us, it doesn’t make sense to split hairs and I think it might cheapen it. Married, we’ll look back on this and laugh, if we’re not drinking so deeply of our lovers not to look back on it at all. Just like, when we get to heaven, we’ll look back on even our fondest, dearest, most self-sacrificial moments in holy matrimony, when the Spirit was singing most clearly through our hearts to the weary ears of our dear spouses—and almost scoff to think that we actually believed that was what Love in all or even most of its fullness looked like.

---

I have for the above explanation been accused of “believing in love.” Admittedly, I rankle at the idea, not of love, but “believing” in it—I get visions of Anne of Green Gables along with every dead-wrong Romantic poem and saccharine excuses for having sex (”I know it’s wrong, but we just love each other so much, it just feels right!”) dancing in my head. But I suppose that I do believe in love, in the sense that I believe Christ died on a cross for the sins of those who loved and would love Him “because He first loved us;” and, to put it more concretely, in the daily love of two imperfect people doing the best they can to submit to Christ and [2] love each other, bad breath and all.