This Earthen Vessel'd Treasure

There once was a man who lived in a town, much like the one I live in today. This man owned a priceless treasure, but it was locked away in a room and he didn't have the key. The man spent his days doing what was good in his own eyes. Then one day, a woman appeared in front of him. She had a key hanging from a chain at her throat. She took the key, unlocked the room, and together they beheld the glorious treasure. They took what they could carry and went out into the town to invest it. The two of them were quite satisfied for some time.

The years passed and the woman grew restless. Whether it was the treasure, the room, or the town, something displeased her, and she decided to go. As she made to leave, the man grabbed her hand. “Stay with me.” He said. But she would not be convinced. She pulled and pushed, slapped and fought to be released, until at last, the man let her go. As he released her hand, he snatched the key to the treasure room. Startled, she considered trying to get it back, but then turned abruptly and disappeared into the blackness that is beyond our story.

The man turned, gazing wistfully at the treasure in the room. Then he gently closed the door and locked it tight. The key, he hung on a chain over his heart.

For the man, the years went by as if he were in exile. He had made something of himself, but it was as if it were a dream, or an unfinished project that he couldn't complete. The treasure he had invested produced returns, but it never grew. The man gave what he could from what he had to people who needed it more than he.

Time passed.

As he spent his days he began looking for another woman. “This one must be different,” He said. For he didn't need the door to be unlocked anymore, he already had the key. He waited and watched for the one who would make the unlocking worthwhile.  

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." - 2 Corinthians 4:7

Baby, Don't Hurt Me

“Love lifts us up where we belong, where eagles fly, on a mountain high.

Love makes us act like we are fools, throw our lives away, for one happy day.

We should be lovers!

We can't do that...” - Moulin Rouge

Love.

In the grand scheme of the American vocabulary, we use the word for lots of things. That fact alone has led many to discard the word altogether.

God is love.

In the grand scheme of the American vocabulary, we use the word for lots of things. That fact alone has led many to discard Him altogether.

Let us sit together then, and reawaken love.

Love, at its core, is a desire. It's a wanting. It's directed a thousand different places, but remains most simply explained as an intense craving for something.

Consider:

Lust.

Covetousness.

Greed.

Where is the difference?

All can be defined as intense desire.

Obviously one is right, the others, wrong.

But why?

In any kind of desire, there are two parties privy to the emotion, the desire-er and the desired.

Does the difference lie in the substance of the desired?

No, for you can both love and covet the same woman.

Therefore, the dichotomy would have to be found in the source of the desire.

In order to find the unique characteristic that refines desire to love, I submit this question:

How can a person love pepperoni pizza and love their wife of twenty-five years?

The Christian-ese answer is that there are different types of love. (Insert inane babble about Greek words and descend into chaotic pontification)

If the Greeks had multiple words for different kinds of love, and yet we only have one, have we lost the fullness of love? Did the Greeks love more than we? Perhaps, but I think not.

I submit that we only have one word for love because we need only one word. The carnal appreciation of food, the camaraderie of a brother, and the intimate connection of a spouse are simply differing applications and levels of the same desire. All love.

So there is one love. But what is it? How can it be defined?

In regards to love, Shakespeare wrote, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

Now, Shakespeare being a poet, automatically understood all of the finer points of love. But how could he claim that love increases the more it is given away?

There is a riddle that floats about, (as riddles do) that asks, “What gets bigger the more you take away from it?” The answer, being a hole, sheds light on the fact that some things are in fact the absence of others. The cold dark, for example, is scientifically just the absence of heated light.

Thus, if love is a desire, and it increases by giving it another, then love must be an absence of desire for yourself. Love must be a desire of a thing to the point where you would give of yourself to have it.

At it's basic roots, this is Love. There is much more to it, myriads of applications, dozens of levels of intensity, and several perversions, but it remains, innately, a self-sacrificing desire.

Since love abounds the more it is given, and among the palate of human emotion, it ranks highly among the causes of happiness, I am lead to believe the following:

We should be lovers,

and that's a fact.