WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022 - WHAT IS LOVE - PART III

 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022 - WHAT IS LOVE - PART III

I’m leading up to Valentine’s Day (and I may have gotten sidetracked with love relationships!!!)

GRADUATE WORK - AND ENGAGEMENT!!

So, I was back to graduate school.  (And, as they say, “on the prowl”).  I was a dorm director with four floors.  On the second floor, we had a co-ed wing.  Half of that floor (separated by doors) 

was a women's wing, and the other half was men.  I had saved my money from my two years of teaching high school and knew if I was going to continue in K-12 teaching I needed a master’s degree.- and if I was going to settle down, being in a college environment was a good place to find a girlfriend and potential wife.  The fall semester came and went with no viable leads.  But, as the spring semester started I had a new woman in that second-floor wing.  She was a senior in math and had done her student teaching in the fall semester.  I was a little anxious in the beginning.  Most of the other women on that floor were freshmen and sophomores.  I was 25 and they were 18 and 19.  But this young lady was 22 - much closer to my age.  We had our first date in February 1973 and then a date for her birthday - and from there - we were “an item”.  

She also was (gasp again) a Catholic - but by now I was thinking finding a woman who was compatible with me was good enough!!!  (Yes, I was strange about religion - and very naive about God and spirituality!!!).  

By graduation, we were already making informal plans for marriage.

*****

She got a math teaching position in Mason City Iowa and I got a position in Keokuk Iowa.  It was about a four-hour drive to Mason City, but for one or two weekends a month, I could make that drive.  (And (shh) we would stay in her apartment and share her bed - I guess I was changing).  

For Thanksgiving with her family, I proposed - and she accepted.  

Aside - she was Catholic and had an uncle who was a priest (and later a bishop).  Her father was reluctant to let her marry a (gasp) Protestant!!!  [Boy, times have changed].  But, her uncle said it was okay.  We were going to get married in her church in Minnesota - but the new parish priest said “No” - so we ended up marrying in a Presbyterian Church in Mason City Iowa.

*****

Second aside.  That year as we were talking about marriage, I discovered I had what I’ll call “head knowledge” about God, and that fall (in evangelical terms) I became “born again” and by spring a Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian and much more accepting of God’s ways not being our ways.  (In other words, Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists were all okay!!!)

*****

We married and (in my opinion) had an excellent life together - 46 years before our divorce.  (Yes, I still love her).

The traditional wedding vows are:

In the name of God, I, Bruce take you, Connie, to be my wife to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

(And, In the name of God, I, Connie take you, Bruce, to be my husband to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.)

*****

After my major surgery, and other things not being discussed, I found a happy place in being a woman.  She (very correctly) decided that I was not the man she had married and she instituted the divorce.  I sense (although that might be in flux) that I am still liable for “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish her until death.”

*****

As I have contemplated love and marriage in recent years, I found myself being selfish and bullheaded.  (gasp again).  

Who am I to judge others? Are gay couples (married and unmarried) wrong?  That is God’s call.  Are lesbian couples (married and unmarried) wrong?  Again, that is God’s call.  I am called to love ALL PEOPLE - no matter what state/viewpoints/beliefs they hold.  I love Muslims, Hindis, Asians, LGBTQ, and whoever else.  This is an agape love - “ It has the idea of a person giving all his or her love or favor to another”.  

Am I too old for an Eros-type love?  (No, and I am working in that direction - let’s see what God has in store!!   I have kind of a good friend - who lost her longtime partner last summer)

*****

From 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 13

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love 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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

*****

“I can only love God as much as the person I love the least”

 

“What does God expect of you, but to love justice, to show mercy, and to walk humbly with God.

*****

LOVE DOES WIN 

It just has taken me a long time to get there - and a lot of mistakes.

Karen

February 9, 2022