The scary thing about Love ...
I typed that like there's only one scary thing about Love and that's not true. I think any of us who aren't terrified by it at least some of the time, have never really encountered it. Love makes you do weird things, makes you not care if you are being foolish or if you are acting in a way that's not in your own best interest. Love makes you something less than reasonable but more than human. Love lifts you up until you touch something metaphysical. Okay, I'll say it... love is the means by which we touch the face of God whatever your understanding of God might be.
One part of the quote I used yesterday said, "The butt of every triangle is the heart of another, until the roof of reality is a tessellation of love affairs." I've been thinking about that concept for some time. I don't like the use of the word "affairs" though for my concept. It worked in the book I quoted because the main character was trying to work through the conflict between his love affair with a woman and his love affair with a book. It's more accurate though to say that reality is a tessellation of love relationships.
I would prefer love to be linear. You and me. Man and woman. Mother and child. Me and my friend. Etc and so forth. 
(sorry, I had to throw that in there and if you missed the joke, you now understand why many of my friends question my sense of humor.) But my point is that I can comprehend linear relationships. I like comprehending, understanding, it gives me the illusion of control. But if you ever step once into Love you understand that control is the last thing you get to keep.
Oh, you get to have control over yourself. I'm as judgmental as the next guy over someone who wants to be swept away and relinquish responsibility for behavior simply because one has "fallen in love". But you never get to have control over another person and only marginally do we control our circumstances.
So what we get instead is a really messy reality that is a mosiac of love relationships. I'm in love with my son Tucker - which is a piece of bright red glass that touches on the fact that I'm in love with my son Michael - the clearest sapphire blue you've ever seen. I'm in love with my friend Mary who brings the cool green of a mountain forest. (Mary would probably prefer that I named her purple, but in my picture she represents earthy wisdom and peace, so it's green.) I'm in love with my parents, and that's a really ugly orange sometimes, it's primal and raw and if the sun hits it just right I have to wonder what on earth was the artist thinking to choose that particular peice of glass for this picture.
As in all mosaics some pieces look deceptively similar. Maybe they appear to be the same color, so you don't notice that they aren't the same shape. Maybe they start out the exact same color and shape, but over time with wear and exposure to light they take on distinctive characteristics. Still it takes all the pieces to make the final picture. When I realize that my picture is only a small part of the larger picture of reality the complexity carries me away.
See we are never alone in the picture. Our relationship is never without the influence of other relationships although some of our cultural conventions give us the illusion that this may be the case. I'll use marriage for my example, because when I'm talking about love I'm drawn to examine the relationship that above all others we see as beginning and ending with our understanding and definitions of love. We begin our marriages with a lie. Okay that's harsh, but I want to make a point. We stand before God and man and we promise to "forsake all others." But that's an impossibility unless the newly married couple is planning to live alone on a desert island. Some of you might want to argue that the phrase is a euphemism, that it means we will hold ourselves sexually apart from all others but does not prohibit other relationships.
Many of us uphold that standard. But we are not physical creatures alone. Human beings are made up of physical, intellectual, spiritual and emotional spheres. And I have become utterly convinced that we lie to ourselves when we fail to acknowledge that the last three are as important as the first not only to our individual health but to understanding what's happening in our relationships. We all knew that when Bill Clinton defended himself by saying, "I did not have sex with that woman" that he was still guilty of something more than an overly narrow view of what constitutes a sexual relationship.
There are of course old wives tales, proverbs, and other bits of spiritual wisdom that make this point. In the New Testament, Paul writes to the people at Corinth to make the negative point, "Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of the body and unite them to a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit."
I've read these verses often over the years. And I've always taken them strictly as a warning against sexual immorality. But the underlying truth here is staggering. Everything we do, every relationship we form directly impacts all our other relationships. We don't hold ourselves apart. Yes, of course, it's true that if you physically join with another person that affects and involves the other relationships you have. It's also true that if you form an intellectual, spiritual, or emotional connection you have impacted your relationship with everyone in your life.
It was this realization that led me to take a second look at the concept of adultery. What is adultery and what is the harm of adultery? The roots of adultery lie in the idea of bringing an impurity into the mix. I've been listening to the politicians over the past year talk about the notion that marriage means "one man and one woman" - George Bush in particular is fond of saying that this has been the standard for 5,000 years. But I suspect that George simply didn't pay attention in Sunday School. I have more than once been a part of a Christian Bible study group in which the leader made the statement that one man and one woman was the "law of God." And we'd look at verses like Exodus 20:14 "thou shalt not commit adultery" as though that were the beginning and the end of the discussion. But you see the problem is not with Exodus 20:14 its with Exodus 21:10 "If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first of her food, clothing, and marital rights." Clearly there has to be something more to the notion of adultery than simply forming a secondary relationship, even one that includes a sexual component.
Here's what I think, there are a lot more marriages impacted by adultery than the ones in which the husband or wife has taken a physical lover. Adultery happens when the one relationship is allowed to supplant an older one and that doesn't require a sexual relationship. You married people reading this know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you. You know that there are times when a certain friend, or a co-worker, or her sister, or his mother have a level of influence that impacts your marriage relationship. Soemtimes that influence is for the good, friends can teach us a lot and help us to avoid mistakes they've made in their relationships. Sometimes the influence is harmful because that new or other relationship is allowed to come between you. Its rare in this day and age to think that food or clothing could become an issue. You don't have to choose whether to give the bread to your husband or your friend, we generally have enough for both. But marital rights and responsibilities? That's a whole other kettle of fish.
When you are too tired to be pleasant to your son because you spent too much time on your work ... that's adulterous to the love relationship. You see? When you are too prideful to admit that you might need viagra ... that's adulterous to your marriage. When you are too busy to schedule time to play a game with your daughter, or watch a movie with your wife, or meet your friend for lunch ... you are commiting the "sin" of adultery. When the level of intimacy you've commited to in one relationship suffers because you have begun to develop a new intimacy in another relationship, you need to be aware of what you're doing.
SO here's what I've learned from my months of contemplating these thoughts. Follow your heart, love lots of people, and don't forget that all the commitments you make will impact all the others you already have in place.
I love that kid, but I really didn't want to volunteer for him to console himself with MY Karmel Sutra. After the tongue stretching thing, I had no choice. I handed it over. 
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