LAST year, around this time, I explored “Terms of endearment” (MOE, Feb 17, 2010). This time round I’m inspired by quotes and qualities that forge and foster love. And oh, this tune from the past, by Ed Ames, 1967 (Nay, my spirit is still young!): “My cup runneth over with love,” keeps running over and over in my head. ’Tis the season when the cup of love overflows, the air is charged with a fervour, and lovers conspire to fête their lady-love with feats untold. The traditional token offering of flowers and chocolates may have become blasé, for many. I therefore simply cannot resist inserting here Lord Thomas Drewar’s wicked quote: “Love is an ocean of emotion entirely surrounded by expenses”!

The splendour of love

In truth, the spirit of love prevails; for all times. Valentine’s Day is, but a calendric commemoration to honour and value love. Love holds the world in its own indescribable splendour, a splendour of truth that has a sense of permanence and completeness to it. Its allure is more than just physical and emotional. Essentially, it is numinous. It is the divine nature of love that inspires in us hope, joy, gratitude, respect, and much else. Even our Rukun Negara lists “Belief in God” as the first principle because God is love, and deep down everyone seeks love to make them whole and happy.

Often, when we improve our capacity for love, we improve our perspective of things. John Lennon said: “All you need is love,” and indeed, the quest for a personal and shared experience of love remains our greatest challenge because what is not done in love and for love, will soon be lost. That is why in the spirit of 1Malaysia we need to walk the path of love – for both country and fellow-men.

Love: quotes and qualities

Love may defy definition, yet countless people feel compelled to capture in words their felt experience of love. We, in turn, find vicarious pleasure and inspiration from reading, reflecting, and quoting their words. Since love is conceived differently by different people, the challenge remains to recognise the qualities embedded within. If after having internalised we give outward expression to these qualities, in word or in deed, we add value back to life.

I picked two quotes that match the qualities of love made popular by 1 Corinthians 13 of the Bible which also ranks love as the greatest of all spiritual gifts. Duke Ellington says: “Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things it is not, but not one that it is.”

As for the complexities of love, I turned to St Augustine, a fourth century master philosopher, theologian and teacher, who grappled with the notion of love in his “odyssey” to discover the meaning of life: “Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just ‘being in love’ which any of us convince ourselves that we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree not two.”

Kahlil Gibran favours an unfettered concept of love: “Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” Sting’s 1985 song-title comes to mind, “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free.”

Victor Hugo also transcends the ordinary: “Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.”

Many of us may carry within us stories of love waiting to be told. What is profound in the “telling” is whether each story has increased our ability to love. For Helen Hayes,: “The story of a love is not important – what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.”

We may be able to list hundreds of qualities of love, but the most meaningful of them are borne out of a personal experience, a relationship. Love enables the experience of a dimension that appreciates the “other” in our life, unconditionally. Paul Coelho lays bare the motivation to love: “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.” Tough!

‘Love-play’

No hanky-panky, trust me. “Love” is fruitful. It can beget many kindred spirit words – acceptance, affirmation, compassion, hope, awareness, empathy, sincerity, trust, faith ... , all good and beautiful. When perverse, it spawns an unhealthy word-family – lovesick, heartsick, heartache, possessed, obsessed, debauched, promiscuous, loose, jealous, unfaithful ... all to taint and tarnish the inherent nature of love.

Tease out the letters v o l from “love.” In French vol can mean a flight, flying, soaring, or even a robbery, depending on its use. Well, doesn’t being in love make you feel that you’re flying, or soaring into the sky, even if only fleetingly?

Don’t you also cry out in anguished delight that someone has stolen your heart? Well, that’s the French connection in English. Let’s play English ... here’s a list of words that begin with v o l. Let your imagination soar on the wings of love as you figure out the connection of each to LOVE: volatile, volition, volley, volt, volume, volution (don’t ask me for answers!).

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