During this month, I can’t help but think of that scene from Sesame Street where the camera centers up on Oscar the Grouch in his dirty trash can.  He says this (read this in your best Oscar the Grouch voice): “Okay, listen to this.  Everyone on Sesame Street is always talking about love…YUCK!”  For some, that is an actual mood.

Obviously the “month of love” is drawing to a close.  This might be a relief for some, especially if you don’t have someone to spoil you or someone to spoil.  Others you look forward to this month every year knowing you KILL the romance game.  No doubt you have heard or read the word love countless times over the past few weeks.  So I have to ask myself – what does love have to do with anything?

At its most inner concept, love is God’s guiding principle for existence. For God so LOVED…1 John 4:8 tells us that God IS love.  Love is the concept that everything else depends upon. Your walks with God, your relationship with others, your devotion, your desires, your priorities.  I heard it once said, “Show me your bank account, and I will show you what you love.” Love is the way by which all reality binds together; it is the framework of the universe and helps it make sense.

Tina Turner wrote the song called, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” It is in this song that she conveys the thoughts and feelings of a woman who, through past hurts and failures, has become wary of love and is cautious of a new romance developing in her life. She questions the purpose of love, the reason for loving, questioning why hearts are broken.  Now, some short study of her personal life reveals she suffered abuse at the hands of her ex-husband. Knowing this, one can understand the singer’s caution when it comes to the problematic field of love. Despite the seeming cynicism and bitterness of the chorus, the song still conveys a sense of hope that she will enter a new season of love and restoration.

The bitter balm of love is indeed disappointment.  Nothing pains the heart more than fractured trusts and abandoned promises. There is no worse experience than love unrequited, or love that degrades and breaks down due to miscommunication or misunderstanding.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he is addressing what has become a love issue in their community.  He goes into detail about how things in Corinth are falling apart; the Corinthian community is not living up to this loving way taught by Christ Jesus. He reminds the community that the nature of love includes a gentle admonition: love is the way of Christ and the entire summation of the law, so folks, please act accordingly.

However, Paul’s reproof indicates hope in itself; this community has lost its way, but through the Spirit can begin to love anew and abide in all things through this newfound power. Love hurts because it is the ultimate act of vulnerability; however, that same vulnerability is the source of all hope for every living creature. It is what makes us human, this ability to love, that illustrates the very essence of our mortality.

Love is where God and humanity meet in discordant harmony at the center of a dirty manger when the Love began flesh and dwelt among us and illuminates our way forward. When your inner cynic cries out, asking “What’s love got to do with it?” remember that love is as vital as breath and is the act of recognizing the value and power of one’s own soul. As Paul puts it in another letter, “All the law has been fulfilled in a single statement: love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14).