an addendum.

an addendum to the post entitled "worth fighting for".

while romantic love is good and an obvious blessing, it's important to not overlook the most important stanza of the song:

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
but demand we give our all

-- warren barfield, "love is not a fight"




John 15
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

worth fighting for.

my previous post was an alphabetic rendition of my life, something that one might forward in an email and politely demand that the next person fill out. i posted it for lack of a better filler, but today, i'm deleting it. it's ugly and quite boring, and i wouldn't forward it in an email so why should i post it here. but, if you're dying to know if i'm A-ttached or single or if you want to know who my B-est friend is, or whether i like C-ake or pie (you get the picture), i guess you can ask (or simply read old posts seeing as the A, B, and C of my life have already been disclosed -- yep, even the cake or pie conundrum).

the letter R on the previously mentioned alphabetic rendition preceded -eason to smile, to which i responded, love. this brings us to today's post:

scripture makes mention of three types of love: agape, phileo, and eros. i would recommend that you do your research on all three; however, in a broader sense of the word, it seems that there are two distinct types. there's romantic love that often incorporates the somehow daunting, baby-of-a-word "in", displayed in the all too popular phrase, "i'm in love with you." and there's platonic love that is unbiased where gender and attraction are concerned. if you haven't been in love, you've probably at least imagined what it's like. and platonically speaking, i would venture to assume that everyone has loved someone, somehow, in this life. i would also venture to assume that we all love for different reasons.

love within a family is almost a given, something you're born with. it's a love you can't really shake, and why would you want to? it's also a love that i believe you grow into. toddlers say "i love you" simply because it is a conditioned response. then, somewhere along the way, the individual learns what it means to love and be loved, and typically those elements of love hold true within the confines of a family. platonic love.

romantic love is quite different. rather than a given, it is a choice -- we choose who we will love, and we choose to continue loving them once we've discovered their faults. romantic love is difficult because the almost euphoric high many people feel early on in a romantic relationship fades at some point. it is at this point that many people choose to claim they've fallen out of love, when in fact i would argue that the ease with which we interchange the words "in" and "out" negates real love in the first place.

within the last six months i've seen a married couple renew their romantic love for one another because they both chose to put the effort forth, i've seen divorce between the most unlikely of people, i've hurt with a friend over a love lost, and rejoiced with another friend because of a love found. romantic love takes a lot of effort, but i believe with all that i am that it is something worth fighting for.

Love is not a place
to come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
Work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for

To some love is a word
that they can fall into.
But when they're falling out
keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
but demand we give our all

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for

-- warren barfield, "love is not a fight"

smells like china.

it has never been my intention to dwell in the past, but sometimes it is really good to just make myself at home in a memory. i love to look through old pictures and read old journal entries. the past is comfortable -- you've conquered it; what is left to fear? still, it's inevitable that i get a little emotional at some stop in the road that is memory lane and that is typically where i'll put the old photos and journals away until the next time i'm feeling nostalgic. lately, though, rather than making myself at home in a memory, it has been the memory making itself at home in me. i can't shake it. it's not a specific memory that reoccurs but a specific place...

it's asia that's haunting me.

honestly, i can't count how many times in the last several weeks that i've thought about my time in asia, specifically china (although experiences in other parts of asia were amazing as well). these thoughts and the feelings that surround them haven't been prompted by anything physical (something i see or touch), although, i must admit that my senses are at work...

life smells like china.

i can't explain it. my life and the things in it aren't necessarily china-esque; still, i have these random moments where i'll think to myself (or say out loud), "that smells like china."

some people have visions, flashbacks, or a photographic memory that takes them back to a specific time or place. for me, i experience smells, and lately i'm not convinced the smells are even real. honestly, how do you recreate the aroma that is so unique to china here in kansas?

i don't know what it is, but i like it. after all, china IS kind of a big deal. ;)