Some (more) Thoughts on Love...

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I've written on love and sight before.  Apparently I talk about love a lot.  As my wife is fond of saying, "Of course, love... You're all about love."  I think love is due for a comeback.  You might be thinking, "but Tyler, love never went out of style."  Yeah, but I'm not talking about the appearance of love, but rather (if I can borrow a Marxist distinction) the essence of love.  True love.  Love of the kind which St. John talks about in his first epistle.

Anyway, I have been reading G.K.Chesterton's Orthodoxy (a great read by the way), and I came across this little bit of beautiful wisdom:

"Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is.  Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind."

My marital experience thus far tells me this is true.  I am bound in love to my dear wife.  But, I am certainly not blind to who she is.  In fact, as Chesterton points out, it was through the binding (i.e. entering into the faithful, lifelong sacrament of marriage) that I was able to remove the previous blindness which obscured her to me.   And now, having bound myself to her, my love - or better yet, our love - has brought clarity of vision to our relationship, and continues to.  It is, in fact, this binding which enables love to truly become love, rather than mere infatuation.  Don't mistake what I'm saying here, there is nothing wrong with infatuation but unless it is bound, it can never truly blossom into real love... unless it is bound, it will be forever blind.

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