 |
PEOPLE
By Bob Garon
Indisputable truth
|
She was misty-eyed as she told me of the neglect and abuse of her
husband of many years. When I asked her why she went on and on in
this tragic relationship full of endless pain, she replied,
“Because I still love him and I believe that someday he will love
me too.”
Perhaps. The problem with love is that for it to
work as it should it has to be a two-way process. Any one-way loving
is surely love but it isn’t a love relationship. I can love
somebody who continues to hate me, but I do not have a loving
relationship. It’s like having love standing alone with only one
partner.
The lady at the top of this column told me that
“love is a great healing power.” True, but not all medicines
that are supposed to heal actually do so. Healing depends on a
number of factors. Not the least of them is how the patient responds
to the medicine.
Does he truly want to be healed? Does he accept
the medical therapy? How well does he cooperate with the physicians?
If love heals so effectively, why is it that so
many remain untouched by it, by incredible doses of it? Why is it
that even God’s love leaves the hearts of so many cold and
unresponsive?
Hugh Prather has this explanation that is very
insightful:
“Indeed love heals, but being loved does not.
Being loved merely holds the door open for healing, for happiness,
for fulfillment, for getting our needs met? But to walk through that
door, we must love.”
The truth is that love is an invitation, a call
to respond to the care and concern, the affection that is freely
given. But many invitations are not accepted. Some are even scorned.
Some completely ignored.
Even Christ said as much in His parable about
the banquet where many were invited but few came. Upset, the master
went to the streets to invite others.
When there is insistent one-way loving, there is
a desperate hope that someday there will be a response. It is this
hope that keeps love going. If the persistent lover is convinced
that it will all come to nothing, it is doubtful that he will go on
indefinitely.
Prather is right. When I continue to love you
despite your unloving ways, your abuse, negligence, and waywardness,
it is because I don’t want to close the door on you. It means that
my invitation for you to love me in return is still there even if
you are now ignoring it or even turning it down outright. It means
that I am not willing to take no for an answer. It means that I
insist on loving you in spite of your rejection of me. It means that
I am so fanatically in love with you that I am willing to undergo
all hardships, bear your insults, your insensitivity and even your
betrayals, while I wait for you to respond.
Until you respond, however, I understand that it
is just half of a love relationship. My half. You have given your
half to someone else or have selfishly kept it for yourself. Our
love can never be whole again until you respond to my love. We might
go through the motions of people in love and fool some people, but
our relationship will always be an empty shell, devoid of any
substance. It will be a mockery of love, a sad and tragic joke.
If ever, however, your heart is touched and you
do respond, there will be a swift healing. It will be quick because
I will respond generously to the smallest effort on your part.
I know that most would have given up long ago
and shut the door on you permanently, but then, they could not love
the way I do. Their love could not withstand all the emotional
battering, the abuse, the neglect and the dishonesty. But mine could
and still does.
That is why when you finally respond, the
healing will be dramatic. But, until then, we don’t truly have a
love relationship. Call it what you like, but it just isn’t love
in the real sense. That is the sad but indisputable truth.
P.O. Box 2099 MCPO, Makati City 1260 or email
gvcbuenca@vasia.com.
|
