Troubling Question

[Happy Orthodox]

"Love your enimies" <-- I don't think that kind of love includes any kind of warm feeling. What that love is like? Christ explained it like this: "bless those who curse you, do good to those that do evil things to you" etc. So, I think you were right, love is action, or is expressed in an action. What's interesting is the definition of faith has the same distinction in Orthodoxy vs. Western Christianity.

Didn't the Apostle give the definition of love somewhere in the Epistles? Let me find it.

Here it is: (NIV)
"4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away." 1 Corinthians 13.
Gotta love this!

He didn't say "you feel this uplifting of your soul and you wanna hug the whole world, you sing in your heart and all is just flower shower..." he-he. that's hormones, for ya. I would even say that these feelings associated with the "true love" is felt within pride or in presence of pride.

 

[rusmeister]

HO's post is right on - I want to offer an old pop song by Foreigner, with an Orthodox twist:
"I wanna know what love is,
I want you to show me..."

 

[choirfiend]

"Care for me, care for me
I know you care for me

There for me, there for me
Said you'd be there for me

Cry for me, cry for me
You said you'd die for me

Give to me, give to me
Why won't you live for me?"

The genius poetry of Lauryn Hill "Ex-Factor"It's not about feelings/sayings, it's about doings/showings

 

[Lotar]

I believe in soulmates.

I also think that love does involve feelings, and that love is expressed by works and increased through works. Love is work, and certainly isn't "feeling butterflies in your stomach". Still, I don't think it would be possible for me to love anyone like I love my wife, no matter how hard I worked at it. I think God made us for eachother.

 

[OnTheWay]

On the other hand, I suspect that in many of these arranged marriage societies, it is understood that men may often get their sexual needs met with women not their wives. Yes? No?

Perhaps, but while people in the west chose their own spouses it isn't as if we don't have any adultry going on.

 

[KATHXOYMENOC]

Perhaps, but while people in the west chose their own spouses it isn't as if we don't have any adultry going on.

Right. But I wasn't referring to adultery as a consequence of falling out of love with one's spouse or having a wandering eye. I meant to suggest that in societies with arranged marriages, since the marriage wasn't based on "love" or physical attraction or maybe even knowledge of the person, it was perhaps understood in some such societies that one's wife was for housekeeping and childbearing, but the man's sexual appetite would often be satisfied elsewhere - especially if he didn't want to have child after child after child after child.

 

[OnTheWay]

Some thoughts of mine at random really:

I disagree that any two people could have just as good of a marriage as they could with any other person. If two people are going to get married they have to have something to offer eachother that no one else could. Part of that is personal compatibility, but more of that is the unique characteristics of that person.

I think the dating culture in the west today perpares people for divorce a lot more than it does marriage. This is not to say I've got the solution or anything. But if you think about it by the time people actually get married they've probably ended one or two long term "committed dating relationships." I think this empacts on many people look at divorce. People's emotional structures are a lot like our bodies. If a certain part of your hand is subject harsh treatment your body will begin to build up dead skin into a hard protective barrier in that spot. After going through a few serious dating relationship break ups I think people get a little more comfortable with that pain and divorce doesn't seem as bad as it should.

Love is both feeling and beyond feelings. When people experience the feeling of love it is a biochemical reaction, it can be recreated by eating a large of Chocolate. If that were the extent of love you'd be falling in and out of love with your spouse all the time. The essence of love is far beyond mere feelings. No matter how annoyed or angery I was with my wife I'd lay down my life for her without a second thought. Something like that has to come from a place that extends further than feelings. If it was just a feeling you could never love someone and be angery with them at the same time. I'm sure virtually everyone has been very angery with someone they loved, it didn't mean you stopped loving them ever.

 

[OnTheWay]

Right. But I wasn't referring to adultery as a consequence of falling out of love with one's spouse or having a wandering eye. I meant to suggest that in societies with arranged marriages, since the marriage wasn't based on "love" or physical attraction or maybe even knowledge of the person, it was perhaps understood in some such societies that one's wife was for housekeeping and childbearing, but the man's sexual appetite would often be satisfied elsewhere - especially if he didn't want to have child after child after child after child.

Well that is true, of course. But then again you might say the same of many western marriages where a woman knows her husband has a mistress, or more than one, but choses not to care for finanical reasons.

 

[NyssaTheHobbit]

"Care for me, care for me
I know you care for me

There for me, there for me
Said you'd be there for me

Cry for me, cry for me
You said you'd die for me

Give to me, give to me
Why won't you live for me?"

The genius poetry of Lauryn Hill "Ex-Factor"It's not about feelings/sayings, it's about doings/showings

Yeah, I've had guys make all kinds of promises, say they loved me, say they'd kill themselves before making me sob, even recite wedding vows to me--and then leave in the end.

I think the dating culture in the west today perpares people for divorce a lot more than it does marriage. This is not to say I've got the solution or anything. But if you think about it by the time people actually get married they've probably ended one or two long term "committed dating relationships." I think this empacts on many people look at divorce. People's emotional structures are a lot like our bodies. If a certain part of your hand is subject harsh treatment your body will begin to build up dead skin into a hard protective barrier in that spot. After going through a few serious dating relationship break ups I think people get a little more comfortable with that pain and divorce doesn't seem as bad as it should.

Possibly....And those relationships leave you with baggage. Even if the new guy is totally different from the last one, you can still find yourself reacting as if he were the same, being guarded, etc. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Those breakups sure feel like a divorce, especially if the guy said he loved you. I wonder how many people are left broken and/or single because of the modern system of dating?

I recently came up with the idea that the word "love" should be saved until you're honestly ready to start making wedding preparations.

 

[choirfiend]

Our campus preacher expresses a similar idea---that because people are used to participating even in what used to be reserved EXCLUSIVELY for marriage (marital relations) before marriage in these long-term relationships that may, can, and do end, then marriage really is just a title or a promise to stick together that can be broken and is much more easily dissolved, there being nothing special in it that you can't have with just a long term relationship, minus legal gains. Divorce is easy b/c you have effectively been "divorced" several-to-many times over in your serious relationships already.

There was a girl who was younger than me in high school. On a bus tour discussion about marriage and religion and things, she told us that her parents had never married. While having kids and spending at least 20-25 years together, they had never tied the knot. It is happening in our culture.

 

[OnTheWay]

The choice to simply avoid marriage has become quite common in most of western Europe. I think the US will move that way as well. People tend to see the upside in that being if their relationship lasts a life time it lasts. If it doesn't there's no complicated legal process for breaking up. You don't have to risk losing any of your assets and you cannot be required to pay any sort of spousal support. As society becomes more secular we'll see fewer and fewer people getting married at all.

 

[Monica child of God 1]

I do believe in love as a feeling. You can't/shouldn't build a relationship on it, but it does help to bind people together. When I look at my son I have strong feelings of love for him that have been present since he was conceived and intensified after he was born. The feelings are chemically based security that God put in place to ensure that I would care for him and not leave him on the side of the road somewhere. Loving him is work too. It takes commitment to be a parent. But the feelings that are exchanged when we hug or cuddle or say bed-night words make it all worth it.

When I look at my husband it is a similar senario. Yes it is work to love him and he works at loving me in practical ways like making money, cooking, cleaning etc. But we also work at staying in love and making each other feel loved.

Sometimes, we are not in love even though we know that we love each other. At those times we rely on our commitment and the fact that we don't believe in divorce But then we fall in love again and makes all the drugery of love sweet. I think over the 11 years that we've been married we've fallen in love and out of love dozens of times.

M.

 

[Akathist]

Gary Chapman in his book THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES (available at most Christian bookstores) has a wonderful chapter - worth the price of the book - in which he differentiates between true love and what most people consider to be "love," which he shows is really nothing more than the mating instinct. If people read and understood what he was saying, they would see that they have been sold a bill of goods by TV, Hollywood, fairy tales, romance novels, etc.

I love that book. I use it in my work often. It doesn't just apply to marriages but to how to love family members and how to get along with coworkers too.

 

[Theophorus]

I believe in soulmates. I believe in the sacrament of marriage, "What God has joined together..."

 

[Prawnik]

OTW, for your edification and amusement:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6232295,00.html

Others may be edified or amused if they wish, although the link is not very amusing.

 

[ufonium2]

I have known two couples who didn't get married because it would screw up the mom's welfare check. In both cases, the dad was making good money, and was financially supporting mom and baby, but the welfare was extra spending money. I can't tell you how many girls I've known that didn't list a father on the birth certificate, knowing full well who the father was, because they would rather the government financially support the child than the father.

 

[Akathist]

I have known two couples who didn't get married because it would screw up the mom's welfare check. In both cases, the dad was making good money, and was financially supporting mom and baby, but the welfare was extra spending money. I can't tell you how many girls I've known that didn't list a father on the birth certificate, knowing full well who the father was, because they would rather the government financially support the child than the father.

I have seen this so many times that I can't count.

Also, there is an attitude in our society that marriage is something that is disposable. It is ok, to live together without being married if you are affraid of committment (in the eyes of many) but equally ok to divorce for the slightest reason.

If love is just feeling infatuated, then I can see people saying they "no longer love one another" therefore divorcing. But I don't agree that love is supposed to be this fickle.

Marriage is supposed to be challenging and tough. When people walk away from it because of these tough times they are short changing their own spiritual growth and damaging the spiritual growth of their partner.

There are legitimate reasons for divorce of course. I just think that as a society we have this general attitude that marriage is to be blissfull or discarded, or that it doesn't matter anyway.

I have always seen marriage as a covenant not just between the two people but with God as well. I married in a protestant ceremony and I felt that my vows were more to God even then to my husband. But I know that most don't feel that way.

I love the sacrement of the Orthodox wedding. It makes it so clear that it is all about God.

 

[OnTheWay]

OTW, for your edification and amusement:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6232295,00.html

Others may be edified or amused if they wish, although the link is not very amusing.

Michael Medved (American radio host from the Seattle area) was actually talking about this earlier today so it's funny you mentioned it. The source he was reading from projected that by about 2025 the rate will be nearly 50 percent.
While I tend to be wary of "blame feminism" I have to say it is a major factor here. First in making socially acceptable to have kids and be unmarried and secondly in making family courts so anti-male in this country. While I certainly wouldn't agree with it, I could understand why the high divorce rate combine with some fairly draconian laws would make people in the secular world gun shy about marriage.

 

[OnTheWay]

I have known two couples who didn't get married because it would screw up the mom's welfare check. In both cases, the dad was making good money, and was financially supporting mom and baby, but the welfare was extra spending money. I can't tell you how many girls I've known that didn't list a father on the birth certificate, knowing full well who the father was, because they would rather the government financially support the child than the father.

Up here if you want cash from the state you have to give a father's name, in which case they cease your child support. If you give a name and it turns out not to be the father you can pretty well kiss any state welfare goodbye.

 

[DonVA]

Up here if you want cash from the state you have to give a father's name, in which case they cease your child support. If you give a name and it turns out not to be the father you can pretty well kiss any state welfare goodbye.

I read an article yesterday (on AOL I think) that stated nearly 40% of births in the country are by unmarried women. The number of births to 13-17 year olds had declined, while the number of births to single women in their 20s had increased.