Day 4

...and because there is something they cant see,

people think it has to be special, because people

always think there is something special about what

they cant see, like the dark side of the moon, or

the other side of a black hole, or in the dark when

they wake up at night and they're scared.

from: A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

by: Mark Haddon

* This discussion on love now leads to three stark paradoxes, designed to jar you a bit, though no one over four is shocked these days.

First, the prevention and murder of love is the most highly paid occupation of our time.  Yet it is billed in bright lights as the worship of love.

Second, yielding to this feverish idolatry is more deadening than the Mafia.  Yet the healthiest response is not to take it seriously but lightly.

Third, the way to overcome the fake fires that are omni-present in our culture is neither wet blankets or cold water.  It is to burn with a brighter, richer flame.


Nowhere in Holy Writ is there found a blanket condemnation of passionate love.  The scriptures are full of a belief in increase....expanse....intensification.  Laws describe the effects of its abuse.

There are always impulses in us that try to trick the laws:
Some supposing that love is all of the flesh end with ashes.
Others supposing  it is all of the spirit end with deprivation and despair.
Actually the Lord pleads for us to feel all we can.
The Prophet Joseph promised that the nearer we approach perfection, "the clearer are our views and the greater our enjoyments." But he added that this was a condition which we do not arrive at in a moment and that only slowly do we overcome the evils of our life and lose every desire for sin.


The rules or laws of mature love are not just in college handbooks.  They are written in the constitution of man and woman.  Like those of a tennis game, they are what make the game meaningful and fun.  There are no rules on how powerful is your swing, how rapid or intense your volleys and returns; only on where is in bounds.  If you go out of bounds in tennis you lose a point.  If you throw your racket, you may lose a friend.  In love, if you violate the laws of the nature of love, you harvest a kind of hell.  And the hell is in you.


.
* How does the world murder love?
*How and why should we take love "lightly?"

*Truman Madsen