Repost: "You *shall* love"

In my continuing efforts to become one of the nerdiest people on the planet, I recently purchased a copy of Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love from Barnes & Noble and have been reading it mostly during breaks at work and my solitary dinners at home when I manage to eat at the table instead of in front of my computer/television. I decided to attempt to tackle Kierkegaard because my favorite band, Switchfoot, has a song called “Sooner or Later (Søren’s Song),” which is inspired by Kierkegaard’s philosophy. You can see the lyrics here, just scroll down a little.

Anyway, the section I’ve been reading in the last couple days is called “You Shall Love” and starts with the whole “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” commandment and builds from there.  The point as I understand it, which admittedly on one reading is probably not complete (heh), is that in becoming a duty (you shall love), love becomes truly free from restraint and truly eternal.
He writes:

But the love which has undergone the transformation of the eternal by becoming duty and which loves because it shall love-this love is independent; it has the law of its existence in the relationship of love itself to the eternal. This love can never become dependent in a false sense, for the only thing it is dependent upon is duty, and duty alone makes for genuine freedom.
[...]
In this way the “You shall” makes love free in blessed independence; such a love stands and does not fall with variations in the object of love; it stands and falls with eternity’s law, but therefore it never falls. Such a love is not dependent on this or on that. It is dependent on the one thing-that alone which makes for freedom-and therefore it is eternally independent.

It’s an interesting way to look at love, and an illuminating one. In the same chapter Kierkegaard also talks about how love that doesn’t come from that place of duty is changeable and therefore not free – there is always the worry that it won’t last hanging overhead. He speaks specifically about romantic love, and how if the two people don’t love each other from that place of duty, they feel the need to test their love because they fear it won’t last – and indeed, if they don’t feel a duty to love each other, it won’t last.

It reminded me of something I heard often when I was younger. My parents were involved in the Catholic marriage preparation/marriage enrichment programs Engaged Encounter and Marriage Encounter. The programs involve weekend retreats for couples, and the main room where the large group sessions are held is always decorated with banners that carry slogans on them. One of the slogans that imprinted most strongly on me, even as a child, was “love is a decision.”

Love – real love – isn’t something that just happens. It’s something you work at, something to choose to do, because that’s what we’re supposed to do as children of God. Love each other as we love ourselves.
So, aside from a quick trip up to Dallas with my sister to see Switchfoot in concert (and meet them, which was awesome, because I got to thank them for their role in my battle with depression), this is basically the only blog-worthy thing I’ve been up to lately. Still, if I’m gonna have one of these things, I really ought to try to update more.