Committed and Permanent Relationship

of

Love

Faith promise Hope Carries Love Gives

Even in our darkest hour when meaning seems lost on behalf of our own heart’s desire faith still fights Hope still holds Love still lives

The question in hand is this; is loving really the way to human fulfillment? If I choose to love as my personal life principle, will I find satisfaction and true gratification? Are all the Gospel paradox about love really valid in the laboratory of life? If I seek myself and my own happiness, is it certain that I will loose both? Is the Gospel beatitude of unselfish and unconditional love really the path to true human joy?

Is a life of love which involves a permanent and unconditional commitment to happiness of another, really the way to personal fulfillment and personal satisfaction? Must one rather stay free and unencumbered from all such relationships in order to experience the pleasure, the power and the variety of sensations which life can offer? Is personal satisfaction and gratification the most fulfilling life goal or is it the deepest meaning in life to be found only in a committed and permanent relationship of love? Should we lay our lives and our persons on the line or is it better never to say forever?

How do we love each other? Romantic illusions make us believe that we are ready willing and able to heed the call to intimacy with each other. Our secular literature, websites, facebook , my space, orkut , twitter, films etc. instructs that when love calls we go dashing off across the field into awaiting arms of the beloved. Love may not really call the way we imagine that it should. The disembodied, erotic, ethereal love of either profane or spiritual fantasy may have us go tripping freely among the daisies or floating among the clouds. But when we are touched by the love on the plane of human existence, we undergo both blushing enthusiasm and considerable pain.

Love as the life principle of a meaningful living has not been given the status of a beatitude by present society. In fact there are recent websites films and library which challenges the life principle of love.

It has been an experience that a meaningful life can result only from the experience of love. It implies commitment and dedication to another. Love rejects the question “What am I getting out of this?” as the only criterion of fulfillment. Love understands by direct experience those often quoted words of Francis of Assisi “It is in giving that we receive”. Egoistic concerns and concentration on self can lead only to loss of self. It is a strange and painful paradox we must all learn.

If we never value ourselves we can never value others. When we value ourselves and when we value others we live a sweet memory of having contributed a gift of love to the lives of others.

Love takes time and demands a history of giving and receiving, laughing and crying, living and dying. It never promises instant gratification but ultimate fulfillment. Love means believing in someone in something. It supposes a willingness to struggle to work, to suffer and to join in the rejoicing.

Love should be supported by favourable feelings but it is not by itself a feeling. If it were a mere feeling it would be very fickle reality and those who construct it to be a feeling would be a very fickle people. However one cannot enter into an actual and ongoing love relationship with everyone. One must decide and it must be a careful choice to whom and at what level of commitment one wishes to offer ones love. There love is a decision and a commitment.

Having made such decision on the presumption that my offer of love has been accepted and reciprocated, I am now by my own free choice committed to the happiness, security and well being of the person I love. I will do everything I can to help that person build whatever dreams he or she has. I must ask myself about the place of love I have in my life. If there is any person in my life whose growth and happiness is real or more real to me than my own; if so, love has truly entered my life.

One must be attentive to what the other say and what the other does not say. This means my love is tough not sweet and coddling. I must be able to say empathetic no. but when needed my love will also be tender.

It means, if you have tried and failed and you just need a hand in the hours of darkness and of disappointment, you can count on mine. I may read you wrongly on occasion and misjudge your needs. I have done this so often to so many in the past. But know this that my decision is to love you and my commitment is to your true and lasting happiness. I am dedicated to your growth and fulfillment as a person. If I should fail you for the lack of wisdom or because of the abundance of weakness in me, please forgive me. Try to recognize my intentions and know that I will do better.

In relationships there is no third possibility; love is either conditional or unconditional. Either one attaché’s condition to ones relationship or one does not. To the extend, one attaches a condition one does not really love. One only offers an exchange and not a gift. True relationship must always be a free gift.

One does not win a contest or prove oneself worthy of this gift. It is not a question of deserving ones love. It means, I have no delusion that either of us is the best person in the world. I do not even suppose that of the all available persons we are the most compatible. I know somewhere there is someone who is better for you or me. That is not the point. The point is that I have chosen to give you my gift of love and you have chosen to love me. We gonna make it together.

The very important message of unconditional love is one of liberation. You can be whoever you are, express all your thoughts and feelings with absolute confidence. You do not have to be fearful that love will be taken away. You will not be punished by your openness or honesty. There is no admission price to my love, no rental fees or installments payments to be made. There may be times and days when disagreements and disturbing emotions may come between us. There are times when psychological or physical miles may lie between us. But I have given you the word of my commitment. I have set my word to you. So feel free to be yourself to tell me of your positive and negative reactions, of your warm and cold feelings.

Thus the presence of someone I can love is a call. A call to be true to the best in me. A call to celebrate what I am. To express myself to the truth without fear. To provide a safe heaven for one I love. To give what money cannot buy. To see love behind every gift to grow together towards heights now hidden by fears. To trust the unknown. Thus if we do not nurture what is best in us, aren’t we cheating our loved ones of the best he or she has a right to?