Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

On a more serious note, what is love? What does it mean to be "in love?"

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 describes love this way:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Just for clarity, here is a paraphrase:

Let me not declare any reasons why two
True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love
Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances,
Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful:
Oh no! it is a lighthouse
That sees storms but it never shaken;
Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship,
Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured.
Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty
Comes within the compass of his sickle.
Love does not alter with hours and weeks,
But, rather, it endures until the last day of life.
If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love
Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly] loved.

1 Corinthians 13 says (ESV and NIV combined):

[And I will still show you a more excellent way]

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy (resounding) gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of prophecy), and understand (fathom) all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have (If I give all I possess to the poor), and if I deliver up my body to be burned (and surrender my body to the flames), but have not love, I gain nothing.Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (proud) or rude. It does not insist on its own way (self-seeking); it is not irritable (not easily angered) or resentful (it keeps no record of wrongs); it does not rejoice at wrongdoing (Love does not delight in evil), but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things (always protects), believes all things (always trusts), hopes all things (always hopes), endures all things (always perseveres).Love never ends (fails). As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away (the imperfect disappears). When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways (I put childish ways behind me). For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.So now faith, hope, and love abide (remain), these three; but the greatest of these is love.

(Now, go look it up in your Bible and read it in context of 1 Cor 12 and 14. It's not just talking about "romantic" love, as is often misconstrued. It's talking about your love of everyone, specifically in relation to the use of spiritual gifts.)

Those two are pretty good descriptions, in my opinion, of love. Of course, I could be missing something terribly important. If you have insight into love then please broaden my perspective on the matter.

Now I have a question for you: Do you fall in love? or Do people fall in love? It's talked about often, and I want to know what your opinion is on this matter.