I Don't Wanna Talk About Love
Photo by Vie Studio
“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth…And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or hurt…let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.” —Louise Erdrich
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By Sterling M. Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
As we enter the New Year, I find myself thinking about the meaning of love. Can we define it or know what it is when we experience it? Is it a theoretical concept or principle that can be applied in our actions toward others? Is it something we feel, an emotion subject to the social and economic climate where we live and work?
Love is both a noun and a verb, depending on how it is used in a sentence. It can refer to affection (noun) when one is loved. Or the act of showing affection (verb) when one expresses love. To remain emotionally literate, it’s important not to confuse the noun with the verb. While many want to be the recipient of love, not all want to exercise it. Unrequited love toward a person or some thing is grievous. The type of love most want is reciprocal. Even when we cannot define it. I believe Love is best expressed as a verb because in doing so, I will never become confused or complacent. The writer and theologian Dr. Henri Nouwen said, “A gentle [loving] person is someone who treads lightly, listens carefully, looks tenderly, and touches with reverence. In our tough and often unbending world, our gentleness can be a vivid reminder of the presence of God among us.” (In Gentleness by Henri Nouwen, 2014)
Love is not an abstract or lofty idea but a guiding principle that should inform our actions.
Love may be many things, known by different names and felt in a way that does not discriminate against age, race, sex, or politics. We may disagree on where love originated, but we know it when we experience it because it prompts us to act.
The late author and Poet Laureate Maya Angelou said, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” (A Quote by Maya Angelou, n.d.-b)
We live in a season where the politics of hate exert enormous pressure to return evil for evil. Therefore, examining love in its simplest form is essential. I believe in both justice and mercy, which makes loving others complicated. Love may ask that I assist those in need and advocate for those who may be underrepresented, marginalized, or dismissed. Pursuing justice is never easy, and extending mercy is often unpopular. Yet, I think both are essential for social reform. The equation looks something like this— justice plus mercy equals love.
When I am conflicted about how I should love, I reflect on what many of the world’s major religions and philosophies teach—To love my neighbor as myself and to have empathy for those who are my enemies. While empathy can be an expression of love, it is not the same as love. Empathy is about attempting to understand someone’s emotions, whereas love is about having a positive emotional connection. I may express empathy by taking defensive rather than offensive actions in unresolved conflict. Empathy may sometimes require me to seek forgiveness when I have failed to understand my enemy or expressed an unwillingness to do so. Moreover, love may ask me to seek forgiveness when I have failed to love my neighbor in ways that I want to be loved.
We are currently observing our political, economic, and moral culture become desensitized in ways that incentivize hatred. This distorted view restricts our capacity for love.
Singers and songwriters can teach us a lot about love because every musical genre has stories about it. Music provides us with endless expressions of the same thing- a principled story of what should be but often is not. Love songs are written again and again about the same thing. It’s as if we need constant reminders of what it should look like, where it can be found, and how it should sound and make us feel.
Romantic love is perhaps the most challenging because it starts in one place and ends somewhere else. Unlike a book, love is not linear. Love does not always follow a straight path. The lyrics and melody are interrupted. The quality of love is judged not only by our own expectations and observations but also the expectations of others. What we say and don’t say, and what we do or don’t do.
The late singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith said that “love has a voice of its own. If we try to outshout it, then the love is gone.” (Nanci Griffith Rarities, 2021)
Griffith was right. When we express negativity so loudly that it overshadows any expression of love, it implies that we are communicating in a manner so critical or hostile that we don’t care about others. Loving someone requires that we genuinely care about the words and actions we choose that have the power to heal or inflict injury (physical, emotional, and psychological).
When we think we've learned to love well, it may still remain a mystery. Love asks for something from us that we do not know but have to learn or cannot afford. True Love seeks payment we must earn. True love is costly and can never be bought. It will cost us everything if we wish to love well.
Perhaps Hal David, Burt Bacharach, Jackie DeShannon and others in 1965 were correct. “What the world needs now is love. . .” (Beth Cartwright, 2012)
After sixty years, little has changed. We’re still learning how to love. Will we ever get it right? In 2025, how will you love?
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References:
A quote by Maya Angelou. (n.d.-b). https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/126888-love-recognizes-no-barriers-it-jumps-hurdles-leaps-fences-penetrates
In Gentleness by Henri Nouwen. (2014, February 7). Windows Toward the World. https://helenl.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/in-gentleness-by-henri-nouwen/
Nanci Griffith Rarities. (2021, August 11). Nanci Griffith - I Don’t Wanna Talk About Love (Official Music Video) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmCbZuC01n0
Beth Cartwright. (2012, September 2). Jackie DeShannon - What the world needs now is love [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUaxVQPohlU