When I attended Mass at St. Francis Xavier's Church (a.k.a. "SFX") two Sunday's ago, Father Simon Yong Kong Beng - whose well-thought-out, insightful and often-academic homilies I have often enjoyed (second only to those of Father Michael J. Elligate of St. Carthage's - Melbourne University's parish church) - expounded the subject of "love before duty". To paraphrase, he said: "When an act is borne out of love, it no longer becomes a duty that one is conscious of, but rather something that one does naturally, without any thought of reward or retribution. There is no longer the question of 'what is in it for me?'; the act is done out of unconditional love and the desire to give without receiving."
Now, if I were to extrapolate that idea to love in the romantic sense of the word, then it would suggest that one should love his/her soulmate unconditionally, without thought of that love being reciprocated. But in the end, we are all human. And humans, by nature, need the reciprocity of love. We may have so much love to give, and all so unconditionally. But with the need for reciprocity, can it be that a man can love a woman unconditionally and indefinitely, when he does not feel even a morsel of that abundance of love coming back to him?
Many women believe that in order for a woman to be truly happy, she should find and marry a man who loves her more than she loves him. That only works if the guy is prepared to put love before duty - to give a lot of love to the woman, expecting only a fraction of it in return. To quote the tag line from latest Coca-Cola™ commercial: "When you give a little love, it all comes back to you." But by putting love before duty, and expecting little or nothing in return, for the guy that tag line should read more like "You give a lot of love, hoping for just a little to come back to you." Only then can a woman say she has found a man who loves her more than she loves him.
You are probably wondering where I am going with all this rhetoric. My bottom line question is: Can someone really live unfalteringly by the principle of putting love before duty? Is it really possible for a man to love a woman so much that he would wait on her, give so much of his time and energy to her indefinitely, and yet expecting little or no reciprocity? Can such love be sustained indefinitely?
I have found that the acid test on whether I truly love someone, is when I find myself so willingly showing my care and affections for her - without thought of time, energy or pennies expended. There is no expectation of any equivalent returns from her - save only the hope (or better still, the knowledge) that I have managed to touch the very depths her heart, no matter how stone-hard and icy-cold it may be.
And maybe - just maybe - when putting love before duty creates that bottomless wellspring of energy, fuelling those unwavering and unfaltering acts of love, that hardness will eventually yield, and the iciness will melt under the continuous streams of warmth. And perhaps, when those iron-cold floodgates collapse under the torrential waves, the wellspring of love that she has been holding back thus far will gush forth - waves mingling and intertwining under the gaze of the sunset. For we are only human, and no human being is so cold as to be able to indefinitely hold back the torrential currents of love that nourishes the very core of our souls... and of our humanity.
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