[Today’s run: 2 miles with the dog ]
John the Apostle wrote: “Perfect love drives out fear because fear is related to punishment.” (1 John 4:18) He was talking in the context of future judgment. But I think the positioning of Love vs. Fear can be seen in a wider context.
A lot depends on the definition of love. It hasn’t escaped my notice that the word “love” is used in a wide variety of ways. Many of those usages are related to the entanglements of romance driven by all sorts of needs and ambitions. Somehow, when the deceptions are peeled away, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of love at the core.
I think the kind of love John is talking about involves confidence, a volitional choice to accept what comes from someone else as the fruit of real concern for me and the ability to effect my well being.
A young friend wants to know if he/she should pursue a romantic relationship with someone.
I’m tempted to ask first of all if this other person is “good enough”. But I don’t think that is a fruitful question. A lonely young person only knows they are alone and is unlikely to accept my word when I say they deserve a high standard of regard. After all, they have none now, isn’t some better than none?
So instead let me ask, “Do you love?” That willingness to put your fate in the hands of another, or to commit your future and ambitions to the other’s well being, above your own. If the beloved would be better off without me, am I willing to desist?
It’s funny, this young friend also thinks old fashioned marriage is passe. “That’s not the way it is done today.” I disagree, but not for the reason my friend thinks. Before there were marriage traditions there was still marriage. Adam and Eve had no preacher, no doves or rice. The commitment is what matters. And the benefits of modern marriage bring most true lovers to the conclusion that marriage is the frosting on their commitment cake. You say “until death parts us” before you are married. Then you say it in front of everybody.
Will your pursuit of this relationship be the best thing that could happen to that other person? Will it make them more able to fulfill their life’s commitments, to their parents, siblings, children, employer?
Are you willing to “go where you go; live where you live; your people will be my people; your god will be my god; where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried”? Richer/poorer, sickness/health, forsaking all others?
It is a very stiff winnowing process. What the rest of the world says you are looking for is someone who will declare their love to you. But that is not really in your control (and easily faked). I think what you really want is someone for whom you can declare your love for them. And that is a big investment. It takes some discovery, some time and reassurance that this other person is worth the effort. Usually there are a series of small gifts: of time, material goods, emotional investment, intimate confidences.
So I promote marriage, not as a vehicle of empty promises and deception, but of an official, public statement: this is the hill I’m going to die on; I’m going to make it work, with all of my resources and intention, stopping only when my own presence is no longer in the best interest of my beloved (which I admit in theory, but can’t imagine happening in practice).
I think you can see how a perfection of this kind of love casts out fear: both of us are committed and confident of the other’s commitment.
My advice to my young friend seeking romance: invest a bit; be patient and see if it will grow. Be honest. Focus on the giving not on the receiving. And find out if your attentions have an improving effect. When the dust settles, the trajectory of both your lives will remain more or less the same. Is the receiver of your investments using them to go in a life-trajectory that you appreciate?