MUSINGS OF A MAN IN LOVE

On Valentine's Day, 1997

Beyond the shadow of a doubt,
I now know I am deeply in love with you.
Still I wonder what love is all about,
and what it has meant to me, my loving you.

Here are the answers.

My love for you is the peace, excitement, and joy,
that I first experienced the day I said "I love you".
It is what I find in my heart,
whenever I see your face, hear your voice,
smell your hair, taste your lips, or touch your arm.

My love for you is an emotion that is ever-changing,
forever unsatisfied and forever unsatisfying.
Because my love for you was much less yesterday
than what it has come to be today.
And it will soon turn out to be much less today
than what it will grow into to-morrow.

Can there be happiness when love is absent?
Unlikely.
Can there be love received without love first given?
Hardly.
For love received is born of love given.
My loving you began the day I asked for your hand in matrimony.
Rationally and soberly,
I committed myself to loving you,
from that day to eternity.

POSTSCRIPT

Much as I have tried to define my love for you,
it is still without a definite character.
My hope is that the love I have for you,
(and, can I hope, the love you have for me?)
will have all the colors and flavors,
of the love that is described in the following verses
by Jesus' followers.

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.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
N.Q.L