Falling In Love

One runs the risk of causing others to involuntarily gag when talking on such a topic, but I promise to try to make this of general interest.

The first thing to note about falling in love is that it shows us that we are not purely rational beings. That is not to say that one should allow one's heart to override one's mind, but it is equally true that one's mind should not quash the heart either. And in truth, when the mind and heart are working together in the matter of love, the heart's portion is greater, not less. In other words, if the heart's infatuation makes sense, then its infatuation is magnified. What is one to do when one finds another in whom resides every sublime quality that could exist in a woman? How can the heart resist a woman that the mind has assessed to be luminous in every meaningful way? Philippians sums up the list with "noble, lovely, and true." Is it appropriate for the mind to release its authoritarian hold for a season so that it may be trained by the heart; trained not merely to assess what is good, but to abandon all in pursuit of what is good?

The second thing to notice about falling in love is the investment. One really does feel that one could lay down one's life for the beloved, without the slightest hesitation. There is almost an instinctive self-sacrifice when one really falls in love. It comes out in pre-meditated service, the sacrifice of sleep, attentiveness to the needs of the other. One wants to give away time and treasure for the sake of the beloved, and the simple reason is that the lines that separate begin to blur. It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The third thing to notice about falling in love is that it is oddly painful. In my recent experience--and I truly had forgotten this, perhaps had never really experienced it before--the feeling of being in love is almost like some thrill ride or risk taking adventure. It feels like you are dying a little while also feeling so alive, so energized, so heightened to everything. You are operating on the margins of yourself, the extremities. The pain comes from the risk involved. Lewis once said, "why love when losing hearts so much?" Indeed that thought must come to all lovers in the intensity of the season.

A fourth thing is something profound to me and perhaps not to any readers. The great problem with promiscuity, or the generic lust for variety, prized by so many men in our sexually indulgent culture is that they never really learn to see a woman. They only learn to see the traits they want to see in every woman. They look for one or a few fungible parts in all woman. They come to see the same color in great numbers of women. They are one dimensional; or more to the point, they make all women one dimensional. But falling in love as I have in these days has taught me to see the infinite colors in one woman. Just the other day, the light at dusk caught her features as I've never seen them before. The day before that she wore a sweater that accentuated the subtle green at the interior rim of her eyes. Recently I noticed a kind of elegant glide to her walk. She is always changing. She really is a thousand incarnations, limitless in the various manifestations of her glorious beauty! It occurs to me that men who seek out multiple women have never really seen one as I see this one extraordinary woman!

Another comment about beauty: The other day I was in a winery and saw a group of young women come through on a Bachelorette party. They were all dressed the same, showing every attribute with bold--and in some cases unwarranted--confidence and crass neglect of their subtler qualities. It occurred to me that many men are attracted to a blatant hedonistic display of flesh, but I was simply put off by the whole tottering, drunk, preening, nails-clicking-against-phone-screens, selfie-taking, college-educated-stripper routine! Their beauty was propped-up, artificial, and superficially sophisticated. It was all tight, short, plunging, made-up, faked-up, flattering, giggling clonery. They all apparently sent a text to each other about the false eyelashes.

But the woman I've fallen in love with is truly beautiful, in the most thoroughly authentic sense. And yes, I am speaking about the physical alone here, not the cheap slogan that she is "beautiful inside," which she is. She is more beautiful physically than all because what is seen is who she is, from her simple make-up, which is just enough to accentuate naturally beautiful features, to her healthy and flawless skin, which she only displays modestly, in the subtlest hints. She is fashionable, but restrained. She is fit, but not a show off. There is mystery in her various fashions and displays of her body. She possesses the brightest eyes and smile, and radiates an energy that elicits a chivalrous response. Men can see that she is lovely, perhaps among the loveliest creatures they have ever seen, but also that she is so pure in her beauty that they cannot offend against her beauty. Men react to the women in the winery with cat-calls and gawking. Men react to my girl with hushed reverence. That is the difference between the false beauty of the age and the beauty of an authentic beauty.

And finally, I must comment that falling in love has taught me about the powerful vulnerability of an intimate kiss. It really is peculiar, but sex can be merely animalistic, driven by one or both partner's need for pleasure. A kiss never seems to be about mere pleasure. You can know that intimacy has gone out of a relationship not when a couple stops having sex, but when they no longer kiss meaningfully. The souls of two people touch when they kiss, especially in a passionate way. Of course, the great travesty about sex is when two people turn it into something less than it should be. It is still a great sin, and in fact is seen as a sin when acted upon prior to marriage where an intimate kiss is not. My point is limited in this regard. I'm only suggesting that it is easier to make sex about pleasure alone, thereby corrupting it, than it is to corrupt an intimate kiss. It is a strange thing that an intimate kiss is less risky in the sense of making one vulnerable to sin, but more risky in the sense of opening one's heart to the beloved. Think of it thus: Who is more wounded emotionally at a break-up? The couple who never intimately kissed, had some fun having sex a few times, then parted ways; or the couple who kissed deeply and intimately a few times, never had sex, and then broke up? Does it not seem obvious the the latter would suffer more at the break-up than the former?