Love’s Worth

I can’t pinpoint the exact time I determined my tagline for my signature block on my personal emails, but it was at least 10-15 years ago, so I was fairly young for determining what has essentially become my life’s mission statement. I decided on: “Live simply. Love prodigally.” It’s easy to see how the theme for my blog finds its roots in this.

‘Live simply so others may simply live’ was a quote that had stood out to me in my youth and inspired the first part of my mission statement. I figured that if I could simplify my life, then it would create the time and space for what I valued most: love.

Although the prodigal nature of love was a lesson I learned from Scripture in Luke 15, many people over the years have asked, confused, what I mean by ‘love prodigally.’ Essentially, it just means wastefully. One of my favorite books by Henri Nouwen is titled ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son.’ (It’s a quick read and I would HIGHLY recommend it*) In it, Nouwen explores the notion that it is not the son who is the real prodigal, but the father. We refer to the youngest son as the prodigal son because he wasted his father’s wealth, but the true hero of the story is the father, who wastes his love on his son when he finally returns—running out to him, giving him a royal robe and rings and throwing him a huge party. And although we would of course think of our Heavenly Father as being the one that is characterized by the father, I think the father’s actions challenge us to do likewise and love wastefully.

Perhaps my favorite book and theater production of all time is Les Miserables. Victor Hugo has some striking insights on love that inspired me as a young adult:

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it.”

“Love one another. Be foolish about it. Love is the foolishness of men and the wisdom of God.”

“Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps. To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.”

This final quote has become my theme in recent years. My oldest brother initially introduced me to his love of Les Miserables when I was in seventh grade. I slogged my way through portions of it at the time, but when I finally read all the way through the book after graduating from college, this quote inspired me to make different choices with my time. I was a pretty driven, task-oriented person through college (quick glimpse—my senior year I was taking 23 units between three universities while working on my senior thesis and working an average of 35-40 hours a week to pay for school #thisiswhenistarteddrinkingcoffee). But a series of events in my life shifted that focus and shifted what I found to be truly meaningful in life, and that was people. When my brother tragically died, Hugo’s words seemed to resonate even more deeply. Love was all that mattered—‘everything else weeps.’

Who will you waste your love on today?