Born to love

We are not born ready to love. We are born ready to need. If our neediness is met with love that is constant and unconditional, we begin to learn what love really is. As youngsters, we explore and express love in ways that are still immature. As adolescents, love is manifested through friends and as romance, as we seek independence from family and search for a mate.

The depth and demands of love are still only hinted at until love is tied to a life commitment—religious, social causes, marriage—when its potential fullness becomes much more apparent. There are tests, calls to recommit, deep questions, vacillations and the emergence of inner strength.

From the perspective of looking back, the path to mature love seems clear. The young, needy heart grows into the heart full with a love responsive to the needs of others.

That is why the best love scene in the movies, to me, is when Humphrey Bogart, knowing he will be covered with leeches, slips back into the river to repair the African Queen.