Easy Love

Today I’m going to talk about something I know well, because I’ve been groomed to know it well. Today I’m going to talk about love, or rather, what is commonly known as love.

Society is obsessed with love. Movies, television, books, even new philosophies spinning around are all preoccupied with love. Being in love, falling in love, because love is just so great!

“All you need is love,” has become the slogan of...well everywhere, because love is so great, right?

Oh great, now for the bad part.

What is this love? Why would it be all we need? I suppose I first have to distinguish this love that our society promotes from the love found in Orthodox Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ.

Christian love is self-sacrifice. It is asceticism. It is difficult because it is beautiful and, as Plato says, beautiful things are difficult. Christian love is doing stuff we not only have no desire to do, but stuff we really don’t need to do, all because we love the person it is done for.

I don’t HAVE to do this, you know. They can stay like this forever.

Our society does not teach us this. The culture is all about me. I will do what I want with myself and my person. Any mention of self-sacrifice is seen as being against personal freedom and individual expression. Subsequently, society has become selfish and self-focused. All this takes us away from proper Christian love. It is especially a problem in the U.S., where personal liberties are so highly valued.

Help, I'm being oppressed!

Love is too much of an exchange nowadays. It goes along with being unwilling to sacrifice. You benefit me in   this way, I benefit you in that way. Even Stephen. This is actually a very poor way of doing things. When one person can't reciprocate, we get angry because we feel entitled to a fair exchange. Love has become all about entitlement, and therefore it is not True Love, but easy love. 

I call it easy love, because it is easy to have. There is no commitment and sacrifice needed for this love, it is merely feeling. It is easy for me to love when there is nothing required of me. However, that is EXACTLY the reason this love does not last. We learn that nothing is required of us, yet we expect everything in return. I want to be accepted for who I am, just as I am, but someone else? I love you, but I don't love you enough to try to deal with your problems.

Clearly these are YOUR problems, not mine. 

Now, what is "deserved" is behind the entire relationship. "I deserve x", "I don't deserve y". That is absolutely not True Love. Now, I won't say that being treated well isn't endearing, but I am sure any good parent will claim to love their children, however troublesome and messed up they are. I've given my parents a lot of tough stuff to deal with over the years and I know they still love me, though I don't really "deserve" it. True Love should never be about desserts.

True Love is never about desserts :(

God, the Source of Love, loves us unconditionally. It pleases Him when we do better, of course, but that's because He wants the best for us, not because we have to be perfect to earn His love. It's no coincidence He's called Father, either. He has to put up with a heck of a lot more from His children than my parents did.

So, True Love is not easy. Love is not "all you need", because that makes a loving feeling sound like an easy fix. Love is really hard. Action is needed. Service is needed. Here is the difference then. There is easy love, which is the love that society shows us as an ideal, and then there is True Christian love, which is anything but easy.

You might be able to tell by now that I hate doing dishes.

True Love is doing dishes.