Whenever I am witness to a true union between two people, I am in awe. What force is it that can cause a person to change the course of his life for the sake of another? What is Love’s nature, that it holds such sway over us?
If we think that we are creators of Love, we are wrong. Love arises within us, but it is not something we made. If we think that the Other is the source of our Love, again, we are wrong. We are merely vessels — or better — conduits through which Love flows. Love is not a biological function or a phenomenon emerging from the superposition of quantum states. We cannot induce Love: we can only become aware of its presence.
Love is energy, movement, vibration. Love cannot be bottled; its well cannot be tapped. Love is not stagnant: if we seek to capture and embalm it, Love eludes us. We are adrift in Love’s river, carried by it, swept up in its eddies and currents. We try to swim against its flow to our detriment.
Love is not merely nice feelings and benevolence. Love shatters, Love destroys: Love strips us of the identities which we, in our ignorance, thought to make for ourselves. Love robs us of our deceits, and if we let Love have its way with us, we become new and glorious beings, beyond what even we had imagined for ourselves.
So when Love finds two and strives to make them One, and should these two add their consent, then will they be undone forever. In the wake of their dissolution is a new alloy, made stronger than the mettle of either individual. From this mystic Union, forged by Love, will Love flow ever stronger, spilling itself into the cosmos, multiplied, set free to undo and remake us all.
Today these two give themselves to each other, in Love, through Love, and for Love. They embark upon a new journey together, to a destination unknown to us, unknown even to them. It is this force, this Faith, which is the real power of the universe, and I am once again in awe.
Written in honor of the wedding of AK and Stephen
— January 5th, 2008
(PDF version of this essay)
Beautiful. AK and Stephen are fortunate to count you among their friends.
Thank you, char, for the kind comments.
This is so lovely, so wise. I’m laughing because I turned to your amortization schedule, again…for the numbers, and for the first time, I read more…where I find such gentle wisdom. Thanks for ALL this, Bret.