My coworker, Max, thought it was amusing that I would talk to the kids at church about understanding love. Of course, he was thinking of romantic love, and to him, I was no authority on that subject... he is absolutely right...

But then what is the difference between romantic love and spiritual love? Is there one?

It begs the question: can you know a God who IS love without experiencing the many facets of love He put within mankind to know?

Doesn't romantic love, that feeling of complete abandon and unconditional sacrifice, smack of the love that Jesus shows to humans in the Bible?

I wrote a lot about love in college. I made a pretty big leap of understanding during that phase in my life. All of my poems and stories were about death, pain, poison, and torture, however. I think that is my general understanding of love because I have not yet had a successful, or even happy, romantic relationship. hmm.

I really think there is a reason artists NEED to experience romantic love for themselves. Percy Bishe Shelley, for one, never quite settled in his love life. I suppose he did, in a way, with Mary, but there's was an interesting relationship.

It's a theme with artists. To tap into something transcendant like art, you have to explore everything heavenly within ourselves, like love. Many go on to experience everything hellish too. But then again, what better way to appreciate the heavenly?

Maybe that is why they do it.

I was no exception as an English major. I knew the need to experience romantic love. Maybe that is why I grew so attached to some. Maybe that is the reason I would drive myself crazy hoping for the hopeless, imagining certain grim death in the little pond outside his dorm...

Or maybe, that's just love :)