Confucianism on Love
My first recent encounter with love is taken from my religions' study textbook. In the chapter about Confucianism, there is a section about marriage. The question that Dr. Julius asked was this, "Can a pious Confucian ever fall in love?"
The formalism of Confucian marriage and the Confucian approach to life in general is sometimes criticized as lacking in spontaneity. But the Confucian question remains: What is realistic in a marriage? If being "spontaneous" means action on the emotion of the moment, one would have a hopelessly erratic marriage, if any marriage at all - the husband and wife would be together off and on, depending on the emotion...
A moment ago, I read Sarah's and Ade Ho's blogs. Both published entries about their friends, who are about my age, tying the knot. Few hours ago, my family was at my paternal family's BBQ gathering. Glenda brought her undeniably cute boyfriend along. (I loved his tapered jeans! Gotta grab a pair for myself after my examinations...) These disturbed me because I'm still single......
Psychology on Love
My second encounter with love is taken from my psychology textbook. Social psychologist Robert Sternberg came out with this triangular model of love.
Sternberg proposed that there are 3 components of love - passion, intimacy and commitment. Passion involves the intense emotions of being 'in love', including sexual desires. Intimacy is the emotional closeness and sharing between the couple. Commitment is the conscious decision to be in the relationship. According to Sternberg's theory, most relationship types involve only 2 of the 3 components.
Passion alone = Infatuation
Intimacy alone = Liking
Commitment alone = Empty love
Passion + Intimacy = Romantic love
Passion + Commitment = Fatuous love
Intimacy + Commitment = Companionate love
Passion + Intimacy + Commitment = Consummate love
Oh, honestly, at times I'm envious of the blissful state loving couples seem to be in. I guess the point that Dr. Julius was trying to make is this: 'Falling in love' involves more than the intense emotions. I'm not ready to pay that price.
Pastor on Love
The third encounter with love is taken from my church's Senior Pastor, Rev Dr. William Chang. He shared about what he thought love is during the youth leaders' retreat in 2 months ago. In fact, I think he came up with this definition.
Love is the intelligent willingness to do what is best for others.
I think I know what's best, at least for myself. But knowing and doing are different. It's a struggle to coincide the realms of 'supposed to be' and 'reality' even for myself, not to mention others...
Saint Paul on Love
The fourth encounter is from the famous passage in the Bible about love. Saint Paul describes love in 1 Corinthians 13. Verses 4-7 are as follows:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
The thing that struck me in these verses is this: love rejoices with the truth. In our world of relativity, thank God that His Word is the absolute truth. The world of right and wrong I used to know when I was younger is getting blurred by the social sciences faculty in NUS.
Jesus on Love
Finally, Kingdom Living has been the emphasis of the church since Feb'08. Matthew 22:34-40 records the incident where the Sadducees and Pharisees got together to test Jesus. They asked Him, "What is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied,
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
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