Love

In 1965 Bert Bacharach composed a song about love entitled What The World Needs Now. Hal David wrote the lyrics whose first refrain was;

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

Love has been extensively studied, from many different angles, and most recently has included neurological and chemical studies. An article in National Geographic reported the brain chemistry of a person in the stage of passionate love most resembles the brain of persons suffering from various forms of madness!

Psychologist Robert Sternberg identifies three primary components of love---passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion involves sexual arousal and an intense desire to be with another person expressed through hugging, kissing, and sexual intimacy. Intimacy is a feeling of closeness and connectedness expressed through communication and doing things that support the other person. Commitment is a decision to love the other person by maintaining that love over time.

The kind of love you feel depends, says Sternberg, on a mixture of these three components. One partner may feel a type of love not shared by the other and the potential for misunderstanding is great. One may be committed to a partner but lack passion. A partner may be passionately in love but be unable to communicate the deep feelings. A partner may feel there is commitment only to find out that is not the case.

Here are some interesting observations from Sternberg's research.

• During the stage of passionate love partners idealize each other by accentuating the good features and omitting the not so nice features. Passionate love by definition involves a certain blindness (madness). Familiarity over time brings to light the previously unseen character traits that shatter illusion. Passionate love cannot last.
• Love persists beyond passion through romantic love defined as "passionate love with the added component of intimacy." However, psychologists have found romantic love a poor basis for marriage.
• Marriage is best rooted in love characterized by intimacy and commitment termed "companionate love" by Elaine Walster and Ellen Berscheid. Companionate love involves deep attachment based on extensive familiarity that results in tolerance for a partner's shortcomings. Walter and Berscheid note, "The romantic passion that brings a couple together is not the force that keeps them together."

I wonder, "How does this information shed light on the bonds of affection and love that hold parishioners together in relationship with God and one another?" Certainly "the honeymoon" period between a Rector and congregation mirrors the idealizing done by partners in the passionate stage of love. When the illusions fall between a Rector and congregation it is not uncommon for people to leave as do some couples thus denying the possibility of companionate love. What are your thoughts?

Shalom,

The Dean