I'm taking an Entomology class this semester (literally '-study of bugs') and my professor is a hoot. I really love him. I'm not sure if it's because he looks like my dad, has a similar personality to my dad, served in Tahiti three years before my dad, or the fact that he actually knows my dad... but I really love my professor. Dr. Riley Nelson (yes, like BYU's new discovered quarterback) and half of lecture time is usually a tangent that he has gone off of that might not have anything to do with bugs. I sincerely look forward to going to his lectures.
So on Monday, he brought some scorpions in a plastic container to show to the class. I had heard this before, but if you know scorpions, you know that they glow in the dark--and from an evolutionary standpoint, nobody knows why. There are maybe two papers out there with theories, but science just doesn't know. We know what chemical it is, we know how it happens through light absorption, but we don't know why it is good for the scorpion.
So my professor is sitting there trying to get us to come up with theories. He starts talking about the scientific method (you observe something, like the fact the scorpion glows, you question why, and then you come up with a hypothesis; then you test it to see if you're right) and at one point he says, "Maybe it is just because God loves the Scorpion and wanted to give it something to brag about" and then jokingly he adds, "How do you measure love? How can you take the scientific method and scientifically measure love? You just can't!"
It may have been one of his random tangents to get us to laugh, or the fact that he's super spontaneous, but that question got me thinking...
How do you measure love? You can't. It's impossible. There is no way on earth you can measure love in an amount or a quantity. Which means, if I love something 'a lot' that is not at all specific. Someone listening would not be able to say back to me, "oh, ok. I know exactly how you feel."
I used to belief that love and selfishness were so cut and dry. For example, "Selfishness is an inside feeling that makes you keep to yourself, all sad and alone and it is a very individual focused feeling." Whereas my idea of love would be something like this, "love is bursting at the seems. Something that makes you soooo happy you feel as if you are going to explode. A feeling that you realize you have no room left to love anymore, and yet God in his kindness manages to continually fill you with that beautiful feeling. You are anxious to give it away, and yet you have no idea how to do it. You wonder how it is even possible to continue to love more, and yet every time you love again or love some more, your love seems to have increased exponentially."
Yes, all these things are true about how selfishness and love make you feel, but there is even more to it. On Monday, and throughout the week as I was thinking about this question, I realized how right Riley was. You can't measure love. You can only base what you think another person feels about love, on the reflections of your own feelings (either about them or based on your own experiences to how you think love is to be measured.) And its not like this is a bad thing, I just find it funny. For example, working at Brighton this summer there were soooooo many instances where I just wanted people to know how much I really cared about them. In fact, I would get frustrated because I had no idea how to let them know the full capacity of my love for them. But I realize now that that isn't the point.
I guess what does matter (what I got out of this whole thought-process through the week) was that there was a different purpose to love then I thought before. I'm always the type to want others to feel loved, the type to want others to feel confident in what they're doing, and if that means doing everything I can to love them, and then show them how much I love them, so be it. But since I realize I can never show a person that, I feel the point of love isn't to be known by others how much we love them, but to just love them.
At Brighton this summer, there was a line in the theme song that comes to mind which states, "...others might not love me back, but I will love them still..." and I think that that is the entire point. We don't love to be loved. We love because love in and of itself is worth doing--it is the one thing that makes us better, the only thing that gives anything in this life, purpose at all... true, pure, Charitable love.
So on Monday, he brought some scorpions in a plastic container to show to the class. I had heard this before, but if you know scorpions, you know that they glow in the dark--and from an evolutionary standpoint, nobody knows why. There are maybe two papers out there with theories, but science just doesn't know. We know what chemical it is, we know how it happens through light absorption, but we don't know why it is good for the scorpion.
So my professor is sitting there trying to get us to come up with theories. He starts talking about the scientific method (you observe something, like the fact the scorpion glows, you question why, and then you come up with a hypothesis; then you test it to see if you're right) and at one point he says, "Maybe it is just because God loves the Scorpion and wanted to give it something to brag about" and then jokingly he adds, "How do you measure love? How can you take the scientific method and scientifically measure love? You just can't!"
It may have been one of his random tangents to get us to laugh, or the fact that he's super spontaneous, but that question got me thinking...
How do you measure love? You can't. It's impossible. There is no way on earth you can measure love in an amount or a quantity. Which means, if I love something 'a lot' that is not at all specific. Someone listening would not be able to say back to me, "oh, ok. I know exactly how you feel."
I used to belief that love and selfishness were so cut and dry. For example, "Selfishness is an inside feeling that makes you keep to yourself, all sad and alone and it is a very individual focused feeling." Whereas my idea of love would be something like this, "love is bursting at the seems. Something that makes you soooo happy you feel as if you are going to explode. A feeling that you realize you have no room left to love anymore, and yet God in his kindness manages to continually fill you with that beautiful feeling. You are anxious to give it away, and yet you have no idea how to do it. You wonder how it is even possible to continue to love more, and yet every time you love again or love some more, your love seems to have increased exponentially."
Yes, all these things are true about how selfishness and love make you feel, but there is even more to it. On Monday, and throughout the week as I was thinking about this question, I realized how right Riley was. You can't measure love. You can only base what you think another person feels about love, on the reflections of your own feelings (either about them or based on your own experiences to how you think love is to be measured.) And its not like this is a bad thing, I just find it funny. For example, working at Brighton this summer there were soooooo many instances where I just wanted people to know how much I really cared about them. In fact, I would get frustrated because I had no idea how to let them know the full capacity of my love for them. But I realize now that that isn't the point.
I guess what does matter (what I got out of this whole thought-process through the week) was that there was a different purpose to love then I thought before. I'm always the type to want others to feel loved, the type to want others to feel confident in what they're doing, and if that means doing everything I can to love them, and then show them how much I love them, so be it. But since I realize I can never show a person that, I feel the point of love isn't to be known by others how much we love them, but to just love them.
At Brighton this summer, there was a line in the theme song that comes to mind which states, "...others might not love me back, but I will love them still..." and I think that that is the entire point. We don't love to be loved. We love because love in and of itself is worth doing--it is the one thing that makes us better, the only thing that gives anything in this life, purpose at all... true, pure, Charitable love.
