Love Gyrations

Love
Once when I was in contemplation of a possible object of affection.


I feel a bit embarrassed at this task I have set for myself. The subject pleads for poetry but I long ago vowed I would write no such lines,

The Poet's Hex

I the poet would write of love
As something flowing from above,
But in this world of blatant sex
The poet's task is under hex.

I write of curls and skin so fair,
The reader's already stripped her bare.
I write of walking through the glen,
The reader's got her classed at ten.

I write of a secret, stolen kiss,
And he dreams of the Frenchman's bliss,
And even Browning's red, red rose,
Lost her virginity, everyone knows.

So love and making love are one,
And having sex is innocent fun,
And I will write no poetry,
About such ugly ribaldry.


So it is in the pedantry of prose that I write about love. Already I have broken the first law of love by using the first person personal pronoun six times. Love is supposed to be "other' centered. Oh woe is me. Oops. Seven!
We get the concept of other centeredness from the Bible which sets agape love as a high goal, the kind of love God expressed when He sent His son to live amongst His devil wrecked creation. As a Christian I accept for myself that high goal... eight, nine!
Enough, already! OK, I'll admit it. I don't want to write about love. I want to be loved!
(Long pause.). . . . . . .
(Fire does not fall from heaven). . . . . . .
Is it alright to want to be loved? It does not change my wanting to love selflessly. And it makes sense. If all of us love others as the Scriptures say we should then, when we are "others", get loved also. No? Sho nuff!
So here I go two paragraphs below: How I want to be loved. Oh, that sounds too grossly self-centered!......(Be patient I got to get this thing off my chest) But then again, is not that yearning for God in the heart of every man really a yearning to be loved? Perhaps a greater pride lies in the opposite direction: to be one who loves without ever needing to be loved, the tough cowboy type who kisses his horse and rides off into the sunset., What a hero! Godly? Not really. God Himself wants to be loved. In the prophets He is often presented as a rejected lover who loved unconditionally but who remains unloved and weeps because of it. So we have a need to be loved by God and He has a desire to be loved by us. It is impossible to love without having someone to love so it is the object that makes possible the act and tonight I am an object.
So try some more, paragraph four. The first thing you think about when asking to be loved is that you will receive in return some of that sloppy, sickly, do nice things for him, behavior that makes you want to vomit. The do nice things is a natural fruit of love but when it is bourne on a tree of "ought or "sympathy" it is rotten before it is ripe. I want none of that. I'll give none of that. But I suppose loving behavior is in the end what I am after for how shall I otherwise recognize love. The behavior though, must arise out of emotion and free choice or the feigned love will be a worse rejection than hate.
A second thought that comes to mind is that to be loved you must love. Strange as it may seem love develops much like fights do. One kid taps another on the shoulder. The other returns a little harder to the chest. Back to the stomach. The face. The nose. Soon it is a whirlwind of fists, feet, teeth and dust. Ain't love grand? In love though, the hardest thing is the first punch.


Questions

When you have a question,
And you care deeply
That the answer be "yes,"
Then you ask only questions,
That have no answers.

The more you care the harder it is to go first. If you get a love punch hard up the side of your face, beware - - the puncher really doesn't care. But watch out those little taps from trembling hands. There hide the lovers.
Did you ever have a conversation with a guy who seemed to read the text for his part off the shiny tops of his wingtipped shoes? He is afraid. And did you ever watch a gal make the social rounds in a room but she carefully avoids one particular guy. Her fear of him shows that she either loves him or she hates him. Fear is a component of both love and hate. Perhaps that is why rejected love snaps so easily to hate. It is hard to relate fear to love. The fumbling teenager who is afraid of the little red haired girl is a common experience to us Charley Browns of this world. Another place fear and love touch is in our relationship to God. He is our King to be feared and He is our Papa to be loved. Then the Bible goes and says that perfect love casts out all fear.
I remember a big mouth state fair hawker selling spot remover. He loaded a glass of water with ink, grape juice, blood and every other stain that life doles out. Then he added the most audacious miracle wonder spot remover and lo, the deep mud red turned to clear water. Applause, Oooos. Ahhhhhs. Maybe love is like that, almost all fear to begin with but then changes over time and experience to become only love, a trusting papa kind of love, a perfect love that casts out fear. The essence of romantic drama is a process of watching the shades of love change color. They fall in love. Then the behavior of one , seemingly inconsistent with love causes the other to shade toward red fear. Will they end as black hate verses blue melancholy love or will it be red fear begging black hate to come back home? Is it only in the fairy tales that clear, pure love finds clear, pure love with never the smallest tint of fear? Tune in next week.
Trembling love! That's it.
Scared? Yes, for sure.
Ahhh, ahem, errrrr, (tap, tap) Xcuse me, Dawn. . . . . . (Louder) DAWN! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I guess you didn't feel my tap on your shoulder.
Sooooo, have you any plans, . . . .well, I'm sure you have plans, . . . . I mean, all of us kind of decide what we're going to do before we do it. Ha. Ha.....But I mean, plans like an appointment or something, . . . . Uh, for Saturday night . . . . I love scary movies . . . but documentaries are good too . . . errrrr even Friday is OK. Sooooo, wasn't that a fine sermon last Sunday?