Here are some perspectives on love by a graduating high school senior:
As teens, we need to know what love really is. A lot of people are confused on this. We see love in the movies. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, something terrible happens, their love gets them through it. Then they live happily ever after.
Or, we see the opposite where there's no love, just pleasure and sexuality.
In reality, love is much bigger than that. Love is God. It's so much more than just "I love you." "I love you, too." Kiss kiss.
It's loving someone you don't really like. It's being tolerant of them, working with them, praying for them, not gossiping about them. Love is being there for a friend who said some bad things about you. It's caring about someone even if the person doesn't care about you in return. It's what you should live by, what you should focus on, what you should strive for. It's very difficult, but it gets you closer to God.
Many people know about love because God's truth is written on every person's heart, but people don't know how to read it.
Maybe it's because sometimes the heart is saying something different than the head. We feel love in our heart but don't really understand it in our head. Sometimes people suppress emotions, but if we tried instead to understand them we would find what love is. We may suppress the feeling that we like someone or want to be close friends with a certain person because we're afraid of the commitment that might have to go into it.
People even suppress anger. They shouldn't because it's important to see anger when it's there and learn how to deal with it in an appropriate way. If not, it leaves scars in people, and even if they heal, scars never completely go away.
Love isn't necessarily pointing out another's faults. It's knowing that others are not perfect and that you're not perfect, doing your best to overcome your struggles. When you love, whether it's an enemy or a friend, ultimately it increases your closeness with God and brings you closer to a state of grace. As difficult as it is, it also enlightens us to realize how much worse it could be.
Once you're at least trying to love others, you feel good about yourself. Nobody feels good about hating.
Not long ago at church the reading said that we should love one another and that if we don't have love, then we don't have God. If we have love, we have God.
Love is a verb. We shouldn't just say it as a noun. We should love, in verb form.
Love isn't just an emotion; it's a commitment. You don't necessarily have to like someone but you should love him. If you're totally not willing to love someone else, maybe you need to reassess how you're living your life.
You don't have to be best friends with everyone, but love is putting down your pride and doing what Jesus would do in your situation.
Love: It's a verb. M. Regina Cram is a columnist with Catholic News Service.
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