Of Romance

So many words and a great deal of sweat has been spilled on this topic.  Let's face it, humans are obsessed with romance.  We like to see it in others, we want to experience it ourselves, and just about every great story has a good one in it.  For those of us who have never been in one we have sometimes asked ourselves, "Ok, so what's the big deal anyway?  Yes, happiness apparently results from this sort of thing but still... people completely change because of this?"  And it did really seem incredulous at the time.  But with age and understanding and maybe even a brush with romance itself we come to know the truth.  Romance doesn't change people, love does.

Before I'm assaulted by a screaming horde of women I should define what I'm saying.  "Romance" is good, desirable and necessary in order for a certain love to prosper and continue.  But it is not an end, rather a journey which reaches that end.  Meaning, the purpose of romance isn't more romance.  The purpose of romance is love.  It IS true that love and romance feed each other in a way but that can only confuse the issue, not clarify it.  Let's not kid ourselves into making the two synonymous or even co-dependent.  You love people who have never once given you flowers or chocolate, or done any number of things which may be considered "romantic".

There is obviously a difference in loves, let's call them eros and agape.  I could defend only two names for this complicated subject but I won't go farther than to say that these are more like categories than specifics.  I'll challenge you to deny that all love falls under either "romantic" or "best-seeking".  Each of these loves is specific in that you can't love someone you don't know about.  It's impossible, love requires action and familiarity thus, to love someone you must at least know about them.  For example, I can see someone loving a boy in Kenya who they give money to even if they have never once talked to him or received a letter from him.  If you search the Bible for this kind of love you'd be hard pressed to find it because most people were attached to their community and rarely encountered anyone outside of it.  But we can find the principle of the matter in the book of Ruth, since the two main characters of the book do not even see each other until after the agreement was made.

Agape is adaptable.  It is possible, and we are even commanded, to love everyone you have met.  You can even love people you have only heard about but never met.  That means you can literally love your hostibus, referring to the enemies of the nation, as well as your inimicus (or your fellow citizen enemies).  Agape always acts for the best of its object, the question which you must decide is what best entails.  

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.  Cicero

Agape is specific but eros is unique.  This is what tempts the bards to sing and poets to put pen on paper.  Artists can't get enough of the special.  Since love, in general, is already specific it is special.  Now add special UPON special and you really have a recipe for a song.  Now before I pretend to try and satisfy your curiosity as to what I think of this district of love I'll have to disappoint you by saying - I can't speak of what I haven't tasted.  That's right I'm ignorant in experience even if I have theoretical knowledge.  Eros is unique because it requires full unity in order to blossom.  I don't know what that means because I haven't been there.  Moving on then.

Back to romance.  This is something I am familiar with, to an extent.  In my situation romance must be tempered because it absolutely LEADS to eros and its just to that place I can't go.  So what does it mean to be in the balance?  How can I walk the line between too hot and too cold?  Agape.  Agape enables me to deny the strength of eros, and don't get me wrong I have felt it.  It's that feeling of a sun coming up through your chest into your head, it's the bending of all space to focus on her, it's the pouring of light through your eyes, it's...  But it would not be best, no.  What greater love has man than this?  How many times have I crucified myself to protect her?  Indeed, how many times has she done the same?

Sacrificial love is better than romantic love because it should and must be prior.  Ask yourself this question friends, have I confused my loves?  Have I mixed romance with agape or with eros?  Have I forgotten what is of most importance?  Unity with Christ is prior to unity with one another, unity with one another is ordered according to the loves, therefore order directs love according to unity.  So order your love that Christ is considered first, neighbor then as self (for you are also counted worthy to die for), and for the unique occasion of eros let it be tempered with agape.  In the end, it is a better declaration of love to feel the full weight of romantic love upon you and to deny it for another's sake than to give way to the disordered desire for unity.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.  Cicero

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