We met… and from then on, it became impossible ever again to give up completely. I have given some thought to why this should be. I believe it was love. When once you have encountered it, you will never sink again. Then you will always yearn for the light and the surface.
-- Peter Hoeg

On any given day, on each movie channel, in each song on the radio, out of the mouths of the storytellers at your local coffee house poets’ showcase, on the tips of your friends’ tongues, and always on your mind is the longing for and/or maintenance of true, lasting, and fulfilling love. And what people won’t do to get it and keep it is fascinating, and in some cases, frightening. But, it almost can’t be helped – once you’ve tasted what love can be, you want nothing less; no substitutes, no pieces here or there, you want the whole kit and caboodle. Is it any wonder why there’s so much talk and thought about love?

Think of the Shulamite and the shepherd in the Song of Solomon. Talk about desire and yearning! Of course most biblical scholars interpret such longing as that between God and His people or the physical yearnings of husband and wife. Whatever the interpretation, you can’t ignore the intensity for love with which the characters in the story implore from one another and how this longing is so primal and innate that to disregard or discount it is a tragedy to the very spirit of love and a slight to ones Self and survival. We were made for tender, passionate, meaningful love, the give and take of it, and the profound and exhausting experience it gives rise to. Having this kind of love gives us strength and character and helps us make it through most days.

So what is this guttural feeling of love, this love that can’t be denied, the love that’s true, lasting, and fulfilling? Can you put a finger on it? Do you know what it looks like?

I’m convinced that it exists even if you don’t feel it right now or if you’ve never felt it. Somewhere deep within the caverns of your Self is a longing waiting to be touched. A longing that knows what it needs and will identify it, ring your bell, and set you on fire when the love it wants even breathes your way. The longing within you will move you to grab hold of the love it’s found, wrap yourself around it, pour everything you have into and on it, and have your nose open so wide that nothing else will do. Should that fulfilling feeling of love ever leave, you miss it like nothing else, possibly search again for it, and know how to deny something else when it comes suited up to look like love.

If you live inside that yearned for love right now, care for it and protect it it. Some say love is fleeting, but believe that true love never dies. Cover it and make sure your longed for love is always at home getting fed something wholesome and being nurtured as often as it calls for. Should it only be temporary, never let it say you didn’t treat it well and right during its stay for it may decide to not rear its head again. You don’t want underground, flaky love. That’s not what you long for.
This “Thought...,” may be the result of watching too many Sunday afternoon love movies, reading an overabundance of novels about unrequited love or love gone awry, or listening to a flood of Sunday night Quiet Storm programs on the radio, but, know this – once love has been roused, either in the mind or off the paper, to put it back to sleep is the most disloyal task you’ll ever commit upon your Self. There’s no way to ever deny the yearning within you to have by your side true, lasting, and fulfilling love.

Sadiqqa © 2007