what it means to "love"

love is all you need.

love is the answer.

god is love.

love god, love people.

love is greater than hate.

love is patient, love is kind . . .

love conquers all.


there are so many little maxims and expressions about love. most people will accept that love is the ultimate goal, that love leads to the right actions and decisions. okay, maybe not most people. but Christians tend to be pretty fond of the concept, and a good majority of the people i run into fit this qualification. and this sort of surprises me, because so many of those people have radically different views than i do. we both start with this abstract ideal of "love" and end up in totally different places.

for example, someone very close to me believes that all people deserve respect. when kids make jokes about undesireable things being "gay" or "fag" jokes, it makes her angry because the kids are not being respectful towards people, people who happen to be gay. she thinks it is very important to view people as people before anything else, and then that all sin is equal, etc. etc. but she voted yes on Prop 8. this whole situation confuses me so much because i constantly am thinking "if only we can get the christians to see the LGBT community as people just like them, things will change, they will understand. only someone who sees the gays as the gathering storm would vote yes on Prop 8." but i'm totally wrong. this woman who believes so strongly in similar ideals as i do - respect for everyone, love towards all - believes that love means not supporting something that is harmful. she thinks homosexuality is harmful. so she feels that out of love, she cannot support validating something that harms people. the same way she would never support legalizing heroine - it is harmful to those who use it.

and all i can do it cry. and pull out my hair. and beg and plead with her to think about what she is saying, think about how much she knows all people deserve love and respect. things that seem to be gaping contradictions to me flow perfectly together for her. there is no arguing, there will be no persuading. she must love people, nothing can change that. and all i can do is cry.

sometimes i think our cause is so valiant. here we are marching for dignity, equality, and respect, waving the banner of love and acceptance for all people. but perception is everything. apparently that is exactly how the other side sees themselves.

in the end, rhetoric is worthless. perhaps experience really is everything. we are not drawn together by being convinced we are wrong, by being told we are hateful. we are drawn together by common experience, and by common humanity. sometimes the horizon seems to bleak.

i cry for the blood of children spilled because of the "love" their parents showed them. i cry, and then cry more because i have never shed tears alone in the dark because no one knows who i am and if they did they would hate me. i cry because i don't know if i even have the capacity to love someone forever, and meanwhile those who have loved and been faithful to each other for decades cannot hold up their lives and teach the young how to love. they cannot show children who grow up in a world of individualism and selfishness and faithlessness what it means to work for something worth working for. rather we hold up examples of celebrities, pop stars, and divorced christian parents, and say good luck kids.

i do not know what it means to really love. but ill spend my whole life trying to find out. sometimes, i think it means just sitting with each other and crying. and i'll be crying my whole life, too.


-abbie cirelli