On Love

I have a friend who described himself as the “ultimate bachelor”–apathetic, swinging, selfish prick (his own words, not mine!). He got a girl pregnant at a young age. He told me how much he changed since their baby was born. Before that, he would only think about basketball shoes, and his car, and how he can improve it. But now, when he has money, he automatically calculates in his mind how many cans of milk and diapers he can buy with it.

The beauty of love is that Love–if it is real–focuses our entire being. The French have a word for meaning: sens. Sens is both meaning (what something is all about), and direction (where something is headed). Love makes sens. And love is sens: it gives us direction. When we are in love, we know where we are headed. We have an understanding that life is headed somewhere and that there is a fitting-ness to all these whirlwinds of things happening to us.

But the fittingness is not so much about fate as it is about choice. We are the choices we make. And what makes sense, and makes things fall into place are all those little choices we make every day. A tapestry is being made out of all the threads of decisions we make–the decision to stay together, the yes-es we make despite each other’s idiosyncrasies, the respect we show, and the patience we give.

Of course, it will not always be happy, but when all is said and done, you’re able to live with yourself because you know who you are and what you’ve chosen makes you the best person you can possibly be. Then things are no longer seen as a sacrifice but surrender.

Fr. Pedro Arrupe says it so beautifully,

“What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you will spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.”

Pedro Arrupe