Do you know?
Musical artist, Nestor Haddaway, made us ask the question, “What is Love?” We danced to it starting back in 1993, subconsciously imbedding into our minds the very question, What IS love? And so, as we have journeyed through life, we look for it. Many of us, still searching.
This, to me, play it as a song in your head or simply as literal, is the ultimate conundrum for those who have yet to truly find love or simply don’t know if they’ve fallen into it. Defensively, on behalf of all breathing species out there with a pulsating heart, I must ask, how does one truly even know what they are looking for if this very thing has no absolution? Existentially, it lives through our very usage of the word. When someone speaks the words, “I love you”, is there truly a mutuality of understanding between the two conversing such utterance?
In high school, I actually found humor in a conversation I had with a security guard I knew who told me that when someone says, “I love you”, he honestly responds, “I love me, too.” I cannot say I actually didn’t use that myself during my vein days. After all, learning to love oneself first is the closest to understanding such emotional depth before transferring such emotion unto yet another soul at such a young age.
I have inevitably grown up since. Fortunately, I would like to believe that as the years have grown in number, so has my maturity to understand the intricacies of intertwining one’s emotions with my very own.
What IS love? Well, perhaps being married to the same partner for almost three decades, having delivered and raised our five children from the moment of conception, I suppose I hold some merit in being able to define such an omnipresent word. And yet, I humbly would turn to the one definition I recall reading for the first time and thinking, this is the closest I’ll ever get to ever knowing how to define love. After all, who am I to even truly know?
Read the following as an assignment from your college professor or AP teacher with the criterion that by the end of the passage, you yourself are to decipher the meaning of love. No. This is not Bible school nor is it to sink anyone into some religious plot. Just read the two versions for the purpose of dissecting every part of its definition for reflective purpose.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
King James Version, KJV
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
New King James Version, NKJV
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
There defines love in two different translations. This is when the professor or teacher would create that Socratic moment to ask, “What do you think?” The room would be silent for a moment, divided amongst the groups who never cared to read the passages; would have, but didn’t have a chance; did, but couldn’t tell you what they learned; did, but don’t want to share; and then, there are those hands up that gives the professor or teacher hope and equitable relief that they would not have to call anyone out.
Whether my hand would be up or not, one would have to prepare to answer nonetheless. Check me off your participation list to say the following:
In both versions, I am unapologetically guilty of having exhibited contrarily to the denoted definitions of love in my earliest discoveries of emotion, interlocked and interwoven with, well, those moments where “You don’t own me!” and “No you didn’t!” prideful moments took into play.
Allow me to draw attention, however, to the last portion of 13:8. Interestingly, this leads to that final part where, if to truly respect and honor all other components denoted of love, this part suggests, in love, all prophecies shall fail, tongues to cease, and knowledge to vanish. This, to me, is the ultimatum of love. I believe this suggests that absolute love lets go of that which can be seen, heard, or understood.
What is love? Love is blind. (Alluding implicitly the deaf and dumb part.)
