There are a number of pop songs I could quote here- all about how it hurts, scars, leaving us standing heartache to heartache, rolling in the deep.
But I'm sick of hearing Adele and besides, we aren't talking about the same thing.
Love isn't dangerous because it hurts, it's dangerous because it feels right and infallible.
A better quote is one that I will overuse for what I'm sure will not be the last time:
"There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it
looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier
it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels.
It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad
archangels."- C.S. Lewis
Having just moved back to Illinois from Massachusetts but to a new area, a new job, I found myself feeling guilty for all I'd left behind in Massachusetts. There were just so many people I had come to love so dearly there- relationships formed from interesting and uncommon situations that formed uncommon bonds. Feelings close to those of parenthood and perhaps the kind you form with army buddies. Regardless, this is the kind of love that moves in and becomes a part of you- it changes you for good, in every sense of the word.
Everytime I move somewhere new I go through a period of bratiness "this isn't like it was in __(insert name of previous place I was here)__ it's stupid." This time wasn't necessarily that way. I have been feeling very appreciative of all the people I've met here who have been so friendly and supportive. It's nice being close to old friends and family, too. But the circumstances are different and attachments won't form in the same ways and perhaps not as intensely as they did in the odd circumstances I found myself in in Massachusetts. I had been back in IL almost a month when I realized I was still mourning goodbyes. Mostly, I was mourning the loss of students I really said goodbye to 6 months ago. I found myself unable to make proper attachments to people in my new life or appreciate my students as much as I should. I argued back and forth with myself about this.
I loved my old students so much- that must mean something good. What could be wrong with that? So I dwelt upon it, thinking it had to mean something. Was something wrong with my new life situation? Was it wrong of my to leave them? No, there was nothing left for me there, my career couldn't expand further and I had friends and family here I felt the need to be closer to. No, God called me to leave some of those relationships behind. Why then, did I still feel this way? Love always seems to be so good, what could be wrong with loving them so much?
Well, obviously something was wrong because it was preventing me from loving others the way I should, preventing me from forming attachments. It was holding me captive. That, to me, sounds like an idol.
In fact, it sounds like a woman C.S. Lewis describes who loved her son so much that when she lost him, she grieved him, thinking to let go of loving him so intensely would be wrong. In the end, she alienated the rest of her family and did more damage in the process. Worst of all, she came to want her son more than God and cared more about heaven to see her son than to see God. This, is not the definition of heaven. And, while this may be "love" in the emotive form, it is not Love with a capital L, the kind that is good because it directs itself to God, the source and definition of Love, the Spirit that makes it so much more, and thus much more powerful, than an emotion.
Think of how many stories you hear about friendships, family relationships thrown away or hurt in the name of love, people murdered in the name of "love." Love can be a wonderful thing, but what are we using it as an excuse for?
Love is dangerous because it is higher in the order of emotions and really, higher in the order of most everything else on this earth. Love is dangerous because it can feel so good and right because, in many cases, it is. But it, like anything on earth that is not turned toward God, can be used for darkness and the more powerful it is, the more dangerous.
Love is dangerous because we often think it to be the end all be all. But the truth is that although God is love (along with many other things), love is not God.
The pop songs are right to a degree, love may be a battlefield, but it is also weapon. The question is, is it being yielded for good or for evil?
