Echoes of Love

It’s another day, and one that finds me feeling more upbeat than yesterday. There is still a good deal of contemplation going on in my cranial cavity.  Thoughts of my parting words echo “ Love harder.. harder… arder… rder …"  growing fainter as the sound propagates through my gray matter.  What does that mean?  You probably have a sense of it without giving it much consideration.  There is a feeling or more likely a range of definitions that you automatically understand. Tonight though, let’s walk along a path to describe it more clearly.

Much like last evening I want to immediately take two distinct paths.  The first is the emotions that are tied up in the two word phrase while the second is the action.  Love harder.  Love in this instance is clearly a verb.  The implied subject is YOU, US, WE, ALL, EVERYONE!  Let’s start off with the emotion though.

The English language is far too rudimentary in the treatment of “love.”  Love in other languages, notably the old Greek, Latin and others, has multiple words to describe the many facets of love. Love can be the usual sensual attraction one might feel for another.  Yet, not every use of the word pertains to sexual desire.  There is a sense of love where it’s a self-sacrificial form of giving, epitomized in the Christian faith as the love of Christ for the world in his surrender to a horrible death.  It’s considered a God-centered love.  Those might be two extremes of the term, but are not the only distinctions.

There is a familial love as how a parent and child relate to one another.  I’ll easily tell my parents or brother, and cousin  “love you” with a different meaning, at least nuanced, from when I say the same words to my wife.  There can be another slight difference as well, in saying those words in response to someone that did something special for you that you appreciate.  The only example I can think of right now is when I’ve made a comment and I hear those words in response from my daughter-inlaw.

Those emotions, feelings and sentiments are not actions though.  “Love harder” conveys a directive, a mandate.  It’s a phrase that wants to change the way we act, the way we behave. And importantly it’s a phrase that asks us to act in a more loving way.  Like the variety of emotions the use of the word love has as a noun, there are as many varieties of the action – of the verb.

It’s been said that love is a choice, a decision, and I believe that to be true.  We are given countless opportunities to decide to act either rudely or with grace.  We can be grumpy or kind. We can choose to be giving or stingy. We can act in kindness or with malice.  It all comes down to what we decide.  Oh, this is not an easy thing. Simple perhaps, but not easy. Far too often, I can feel my ire rising and too quickly answer an unhelpful  customer service rep with less than a friendly reply.  Honestly, at times I can be down right harsh – and feel it was fully justified!  That’s the opposite of Loving Harder.  I have a lot of work to do my friends.  For as lovely as I know you all to be, I imagine we all could love a little harder – at least occasionally.

How easy is it to say there isn’t enough time to visit with a friend or family member?  How difficult do we find it to drop our plans to lend a hand at an inopportune time?  What cost will we bear to help a stranger? Isn’t it uplifting to hear of a story where a complete stranger was moved to donate a kidney to someone in dire need?  Isn’t it lovely to see a police office pay for groceries instead of arresting a person that is flat broke and is trying to feed a family?  But let us ask this, why did it come to the point where there was nowhere for that unfortunate soul to go to find a meal or meals?  Years ago I would watch the house makeover show for some deserving family.  It was amazing to see the before and after and what it meant for the family’s living conditions, yet I also realize there are surely many other similar families in need that go on working hard to “get by.”  Fate is fickle indeed.  There are posts on social media now and again where a waitress receives a large “tip” to pay off many bills, or maybe get through a semester of college.  All truly extraordinary.  Yet it seems there is always another case that has a similar story and need.

I wonder if we all gave just a little more – time, knowledge, funds, a should to cry on, advice,   - how would it impact the world.  In other words, if we acted on the caring we feel – the love we feel – I believe we would all be better off for it.  Both the giver and receiver alike benefit, because in the process of giving and receiving we’ll learn we are far more alike than different.

So “love harder”, as it echoes and recedes, means to me that we all start to care for each  other just a little more, and we act on that caring.  We all know hardships of some kind, and we all know what it’s like to have a someone jump in with a lending hand.

Love harder.