Thoughts

Words of Love

by revolutionary Sharlene Murphy

What if the problems of love were simply semantics? Could we rearrange the stream of vowels and punctuations to perforate a paradigm that tells the masses to seek success in one plasticized fashion? And if we did would the world of love overtake our overdrive suppression of needs we neglect, dreams we dispose, and options which we obliterate? All because we found a new way to use English to be livers and lovers?

Capitalization

Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi', a whimsical piece of fiction that documents the maritime adventures of a religiously quizzical young man afloat a life raft with a certifiably dangerous zoo animal, exposes a grammatical tendency of the Christian faith – the capitalization. Its not far off routine, as one can read Scripture [case in point] and dance about many examples where a seemingly middle of the sentence word undergoes a radical transformation to end at a theoretical beginning with a capital letter. It is this choice that allows writers and readers alike to make a marked distinction between commonplace and Proper word form. I am just I am, but I Am is capital. He's rearranged and revamped. The visual effect this has on complacently reading eyes is one of zealot invitation. Here you were, thumbing about in the simple formula of capital letter, word and words, closing punctuation - expected. Then with little reason, sprouts a non-proper noun that is through sudden fashion proper incognito. Who told that letter it could rise above the prescribed horizon of manageable language?

What if words like love and romance underwent a growth spurt? The acclaimed novel turned Broadway play Wicked, digs a bit into this concept. We live life. We work jobs. We walk dogs. We have relationships. All celebratory acts in and of them conceptually, but when done under the compressors and suppressors of mundane today they seem closer to obligations and chores than they do rituals and glories. In Wicked there are animals and there are Animals. The latter, in its uppercase phenomenon, allows for a sense of purposeful expression in an otherwise deadpan norm. The Animals were highly conscious beings, with the ability to talk like we hear talking and internalize levels of discrimination in parallel contexts that we humans experience. It interpolated a novel perspective of something already determined as another.

Let us apply this to love. Rather, Love. With the pending Hallmarkian barrage of flowers, candy hearts and mass-manufactured messages of fancy, we become slaves to formularies. On one side, we are blocked off by gestures of necessity ["My wife demands we have a special night out for Valentine's Day"]. To its left, a second option is one of depravation in solitude ["I don't have a boyfriend again this year. Why am I always alone – what's wrong with me?"]. Then there are the slicing cynics who watch the movie Pyscho and actively degrade the brainwashed, pro-consumerist approach to eros – and fall further into a trap of romance bitterness. This triangle is such a strident presence that the alternative voice is but nothing of a powerful whisper. Quirkyalone, a manifesto for uncompromising romantics, is a chime in that whisper. Writer, creator, militant Romantic Sasha Cagen writes "Uppercase Romantic is first and foremost about sincerity, but it also can take on the meanings of reverie, fantasy, introspection, intuition, and realness. For the quirkalone there's a power in Romantic yearning – the stolid power in holding out for a vision, feeling a sense of possibility – but there's also a power in not yearning, in feeling self-contained." Cagen's words do not fall far from Jesus' teachings on Love and (in an extrapolated way) Romance. Didn't Jesus urge us to hold out for ideals, even when the society at large says they do not and cannot exist? In the Gospel of Luke "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your friends, hate your enemies.'

But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that!" That is a capital letter challenge that strays from the straight and narrow of the rules of this world. God doesn't want us to settle – in our commitment to Him, to Love and in our relationships with one another. Oscar Wilde once wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars." We're looking up at the possibility of not compromising in the face of the issues of importance to us.

The plural form

When did we become such a singular nation? Why has independence – a lighted release from tyranny of the past – now become a jail cell of our own ways and wants? Another grammatical mishap in the discourse of Love and Romance [and even in the Christian community] is the decreasing use of the plural form. For instance, take the phrase: significant other. This coupling is famous in our language – it's ubiquitously understood and rarely questioned. But upon further dissection, it excludes with such finality anyone who stands outside the confines of a pairing like that. Significant means having or expressing a meaning. Other implies one, in this usage. Former plus latter equates a further divide between those bearing the title Significant Other and those wondering why they run around with lowercase letters preceding them.

Having a partner or spouse in one's life is a blessing that the good Lord takes pride in when done correctly. Yet, this is not the stressed end to the relational needs burgeoning in each one of us. From the book of Acts, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe…All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people." That reads like a plea for Significant Others.

In his exhaustive take on the expressions of love in The Four Loves, CS Lewis writes, "Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not. They would be glad to reduce it. The first two would be glad to find a third." Not much can be done to acutely address the pro-marriage, pro-traditional relationships approach the society at large takes. If you identify more with significant others than you do with just one, you are on the receiving end of many quizzical looks. It is as if voluntary singlehood is either a terminal condition that merits condolences and sympathetic glances from the coupled parties, or an infectious disease that no one in their right mind would want to catch. Because by catching, how would you ever feel Significant? Which leads to the third problem area of the semantics of love.

The question mark and its cousin, the ellipsis

You are…single? With no great intention to be exclusive or any bit judgmental, a simple inquisition can birth forth an irritable focus – who is your better half? Why aren't you dating? What's…wrong…with you? The great expedition of discovering another soul that is just enough similar with the flavor of diversity is one of uncompromising antics. This process is of varying lengths and intensity to each, some sauntering the slow path. Be it the local stop-at-every-street-corner bus service or the express version, the trip is sacred enough to allow people the dignity to remain in a state of uncoupling for as long or as short they deem sufficient. Language in our classrooms, on the radio, in the news print, subtly suggests that the American Dream is epicenter to all of us. Spouse, suburban home, saintly children, a Euro-vacation and domesticated animal too boot, are the cultural values that permeate today's status quo. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, not everyone experiences these. So although singles are breeching the married majority, it is a relationship status that still makes people uncomfortable. The generational triple jump took our future world changers into a milieu of working women, single parents and interracial and gay unions and marriages. The temperature is constantly recorded and reported back to those heating it up, wondering when the gray areas of Love and relationships with color out. Notwithstanding, happily after is undergoing metamorphosis but those question marks keep dropping.

Quite possibly the most tragic semantic folly of Love and Romance is the philosophy of the ellipsis – when used in the sense to foretell the forthcoming and to put all ends hope in that which is yet at hand. "I cannot wait to be in a relationship." It starts, we hear the minor chord jazzy love tunes and wonder what's on the other end of those lyrics. "Now that I am in a relationship, when will I be married?" The ordinary dulls at the edges and we daydream to the next pillar of this puzzle. "I can't wait to have children…it all will be better once we start a family." Those words that predict today's redemption in tomorrow's changes leads to today's disappointments. Life is an extended monologue connected abruptly with our ellipses, waiting for something tomorrow to be of the difference. But when Jesus returns it will not be tomorrow – it will be in the present moment of today, whichever day that may be. The ellipsis robs us of coming full circle in any given moment of the great present. What better moment than right now to engage in the act of Love? If we wait until we are in a relationship, or in different stage of that relationship or in a more presentable aura of ourselves, we have let too many opportunities dissolve without a chance to Romance life.

Traditional expression of Love and Romance isn't bad [in fact great for some], many translate success and satisfaction in those waves. But non-traditional tales shouldn't be something to fear, mock or destroy. For in those radicalization of Love and Romance, we may recognize a fairer shade of fruition of that act we are so desperately trying to receive, achieve and replicate: the revolutionary Love of God manifested to His people. Maybe its time to rewrite those rules of Love.