By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo
The idea of love is perhaps the most abused of all terms. There is so much dearth of understanding of this concept that for the most part, those who think they love have no clue what they are talking about. Many people step into relationships where they become sexually attached to their mates. They pine in their absence and long for them all day long. In bed, they gratify themselves in any way they know how. These may think that they are in love because of the yearnings around their waistline when they see one another. However, beyond the sex, there is nothing much: no conversation, no entertainment, and no common interest. This type of love, based on only physical attraction, ought to be called by its right name--lust! To others, love manifests as an object of possession-- a reason for intense jealousy over which they fight for attention and domination. Indeed, some ladies and gentlemen demonstrate their love for their partners by how many friends and family members they are able to drive away from their homes. These mistake possessiveness for love.
There are also those parents who think that the most effective way to show love to their children is to spoil them and offer them whatever they ask for, raising them to think that they are above all others and going on the rampage should teachers or others seek to discipline the children. Insofar as this doting behavior leads to severe instances of irresponsible adulthood in the children, we can say that the parents are hating their children, not loving them. Indeed, those who would make their kids monarchs in childhood groom them for an adult life of servitude. The parents that truly love their kids will therefore discipline them and give them the requisite training for them to become responsible adults.
Again, people go to church to demonstrate their love for God through heavy donations. Others manifest their love for God by killing and destroying, while others’ love presents in perpetual fasting, prayer mongering, and sanctimonious rituals. Nothing in their love of God touches their fellow human beings or bears on service to their societies. They hold fast to their racist and ethnocentric hatred, while maintaining their sanctimonious attitudes before the altars of their gods.
True love is caring for humanity. The one caring for humanity holds it in fiduciary trust, putting the interest of others above his or her own. In this context, the welfare of his wife, children the society and country takes precedence over his own welfare, and he/she seeks harmony within the community by his or her support of every individual within the group.
Love also means service to others, which is actually service to God. The only way to authenticate our love for God is to love our neighbors. Service to others extend beyond our small circles to cover our societies, our countries and our world.
Love is also the effacing of the self and the purging of all self interest. This is applicable to all situations: if we eschew selfishness with our partners, friends, colleagues and family members, our relationships will be enriched, and our lives will become whole.
Love is sharing. We do not share by making the Church richer through heavy donations. We share by an awareness of the needs of those around us, and the eagerness to supply these needs even beyond and above the call of duty. We must diligently seek for the opportunity to perform some act of charity, and consider the chance an affirmation of our humanity.
Love is positive mental attitude towards all humankind, a life devoted to the realization that despite our differences (our tribes, skin tone, our parties, religion and creed) we are all God’s children, deserving of dignity, respect, friendship and compassion.
Love is also forgiveness and mercy, the desire to give others another chance to redeem themselves, and the consciousness that by so doing, we will also have another chance to redeem ourselves.
Love is responsibility, the idea that we must perform our duties by our partners, our children our society and all humanity. If we reach deep into ourselves and do our best in every situation, we exhibit the quality of love. Love is the greatest of all emotions, but it is also the curbing of all negative emotions; it is a life purged of anger, of bitterness, of envy, of jealousy and of fear.
Love is the wisdom to weigh our words carefully and to listen to ourselves even as we speak to others, to check whether what we tell others is what we will want others to tell us.
Love is justice for all, and injustice to none. It is the courage to speak truth to power with humility and compassion, to prompt with respect, while retaining the gem of principles, to treat all as all should be treated and to shine the light of truth in the darker places of the spirit; to make whole that which is corrupt…
Love is the passion to do the most good for the most people at the most time, the alacrity for all things righteous, and the foreswearing of all acts evil.
In short, love is the affirmation of all things right, and the negation of all things wrong; it is the celebration of the ultimate good in our spirits, and the repudiation of the aberrations that daily tempt our souls……It is the sacrifice of the self for the well-being of all beings, and the attainment of immortality through the death to the self.
Love is goodness and goodness is love. True love is the righteous life and the righteous life is the true love. True love applies to all time, all space and all actions. It is the dew of the morning that gives life to all life. Our churches and mosques have not dwelt enough on the subject of love. Much too often, we have been misled to substitute the interest of the religious leaders for the love of God. The result is the pervasiveness of hatred in a world that is yearning for love, and the delusion that we are devotees of God in spite of our hatred for others. But every human being is happy and satisfied in his or her life to the extent to which he retains love and is guided by its precepts. Just as the first victim of hatred is the person hating, so the first beneficiary of love is the person loving. The first born of love is the calmness of the spirit, the inner peace and contentment that come to the one that has done his utmost best in the world. By giving to humanity, we get back many times; by letting go, we receive in abundance; by forgiving others, we forgive ourselves; by serving others, our spirits are served; by eschewing hatred, we unburden our minds, by sacrificing the self, we attain everlasting life; by being responsible, we create a society of responsibility. Just as there is no iota of hatred that goes unpunished against the hater, so there is no atom of love that will go unrewarded to the loving.
This then is the mystery of life: that all spirituality, all happiness, all peace, all progress, all prosperity, all wisdom depend on love, the beginning, the middle and the end of all life.
If what we understand of love comprised the foregoing, we should be in harmony with our partners, our children, our societies and our world, and the virtues of calmness, charisma, courage and confidence will be the lot in our lives. Upon this dreary earth, we shall endow the music of heaven, and bring forth into our world the fountain of joy known only to those that truly love.
Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Doctor of Law, lives in Austin, Texas. You can email him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com
