Dear Editor,
As we celebrate Valentine’s Day we must contemplate the significance of the word ‘Love’ which I believe is the greatest of all words in the English Language. Great writers, poets, singers, film makers, philosophers based their philosophies around this simple and precious word ‘love’. When this fascinating word is traced to it’s root from the Greek concept it gives us the true meaning of the word ‘love’ from three Greek words:Eros,Philia and Agape. Eros has to do with sexual love between a man and woman; philia has to do with friendship;but the greatest love is what most experts called the ”agape love” or the God kind of love; meaning the unconditional love of all human beings.
This is the God kind of love Jesus spoke about in St.John’s Gospel Chapter 15:12 which is as follows: ” This is my command-ment,that you love one another as I have loved you”.
This is the type of love Gandhi, Mandela and King demonstrated to their enemies in the world. Gandhi wrote: “An eye for an eye gives the world a blind eye”. If we can follow this profound philosophy of love we can live in a better world devoid of hate, greed and malice.
The poetic-philosophy of love can also be seen in some of the greatest poets from the East and West such as Tagore, Kalidasa, Gibran, Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare.
Shakespeare wrote a collection of 154 sonnets,some based on love he dedicated to a dark lady that could have been his wife or a woman he admired; while some of his sonnets included his life story hidden in intricate imageries begins and ends his 151 sonnet with the following lines:
“Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her ‘love’ for whose dear love I rise and fall”
Here the poet explores the relationship of youthful love by using the word ‘conscience’meaning his love is governed by his thoughts that involves his truth and justice about his love;yet his love is unstable but his love for this woman is wavering like the waves in the sea of his young mind.This entire sonnet that consists of 14 lines gives the reader a very vivid picture about ‘love’ in it’s deceptive manifestations.
A very dedicated woman poetess by the name of Elizabeth Browning wrote a fantastic series of forty-four sonnets to challenge the genius of Shakespeare and Petrarch.She wrote these sonnets during the months of her courtship by Robert Browning.Her most famous love lines are as follows:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight,
I shall but love thee better after death…….”
The eternal imagery in these lines came from deep within the soul of this noble poetess. She sees her relationship of love beyond sexual or romantic love; she sees love not on the external but on the inner spirit of her being; she lays bare her heart of love’s true nature that is the God kind of love or the Agape love.
We can evaluate from this literary discourse that ‘love’ is the answer to man’s basic needs and desires.If we can comprehend the love of God,we will be able to love the world,love ourselves,love our families,our country and build a bridge of peace among all mankind.May we find that divine bliss and joy on Valentine’s Day.
Yours faithfully,
Rev.Gideon Cecil