What is this thing called Love?

Amor, Amour, Kaerligheid, Kjarligthet, Lieben, Liefde, Love.

This is a word spoken in every tongue in every age, a universal word. The word The word love represents an emotion or a relationship that every human being has experienced in unique ways. Love is as diverse as its various words.

The fact that understanding love is difficult, should not prevent our trying. A young man who whispered to his bride, "I love you every way a person can love another. I love you like a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a lover, a friend...." recognizing the profound variety of ways in which people love each other. He associated love with nourishing relationships. Indeed love should nourish, genuine love contributes to spiritual growth.

Constant Love Can Surmount Change and Adversity.

True love involves more than romantic feelings. To find joy in marriage, couples must persevere and work hard to overcome obstacles. Each partner has the obligation to make this effort. Those who, in love, face problems together find trials more manageable and often make troubles into blessed, refining influences. Years and experience can add substance to the lovely, lacy fabric of young love.

The following poem illustrates the effects of time and change in marriage. Translated from ancient Chinese by Ezra Pound. The poet being Rihaku who lived in the 8th century A.D. The voice is that of a young girl, married by arrangement of her parents. She is writing to her husband.

The River Merchant's Wife: A letter.

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead,
I played the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse. You walked about my back, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed or being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling.
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours, forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed. You went into far Ku- to- en, by the river of swirling Eddie's,
And you have been gone five months. The monkeys made sorrowful noises overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August.

Over the grass in the west garden ;They hurt me. I grow older. If you are coming through the narrows of the river Kiang, please let me know beforehand and I will come out to meet you, as far as Cho - fu - sa.

This is a remarkable poem. It represents a Westener's attempt to translate ideograms, or the picture writing of the Chinese.
Ezra Pound translated whole clusters of nouns into complete ideas. The poem is soft and understated, and shows the progression in the relationship between the girl and boy. By the last line, we understand that the young wife is willing to go a great distance to meet her husband. She progresses from being bashful and scowling to being older and she focuses more on her husband than herself.

Reality teaches us that marriage and love are not always ideal. Love requires time and endurance to become its most beautiful.

There is no such thing as falling out of love. True love is only grasped after many years of nurturing, of give and receive, going the extra mile over and over again. Love is a great commitment, one that requires so much effort that too many men are not willing to make it. Love must be patient. It must water, shelter, protect, listen. It must see with the heart. It must care about the spiritual well-being of itself or others. It must be responsible. If it is all these things, it will bring tremendous joy.

As a summary statement :
I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's one or another's spiritual growth.

Sources : RS courses of Study, Pixabay, Google images.