A Life Laid Down

I listened recently to a Country & Western song telling the sad tale of the singer's lover being stolen by her best friend.  As I did so, I recollected some of the many things that life has taught me about love.  It seems to me that the theme of many love songs carries an error over one very basic point – the difference between attraction and love.

We can always make ourselves attractive by being clean and well-dressed, by our good manners and elegant behaviour, and many other ways at our disposal.  With luck, this will cause sufficient interest to prompt the response we desire. 

Whether or not that response is love, however, depends upon the other party.  Whatever our attraction, it cannot command love: this has to be given by the lover.  And if it be a gift, it cannot be thrown away, removed, stolen from or even killed by the one who is loved.  It has to be withdrawn by the lover.

What the ‘desirer’ may or may not be able to control is the degree of attraction that he or she displays.  Poverty, for example, may mean that a smart new suit or flashy designer dress isn’t a possibility; injury or illness might mean that appearances or abilities decline.  But how often local newspapers print pictures of couples celebrating their golden or diamond wedding anniversaries, where one of them is quoted saying of the other, “She/He’s just the same now as when I met him/her.”  Clearly, in a literal sense, this can’t be true.  What’s really being expressed is the love that holds them together.  This comment refers to an intangible quality, some inner personality which, even if it too has adapted through the years, is still appreciated, and found to be attractive.

Perhaps the supreme example of love being the gift of the lover is that of our Lord Jesus.  His life wasn’t taken from him, but given by him.  It was an expression of his love for us (John 10:17-18).  John’s Gospel has much to say about love, and perhaps the most poignant verse is 15:13, one that is particularly appropriate as we begin to mark the centenary of the First World War and which, in one form or another, has found its way onto many a war memorial.