Love is a Verb

Lots of people are going to be talking about love today. They will be writing cutesly little love notes, and really bad poetry. (Okay, and some good poetry as well.) There will be proclamations of love from rooftops, and not a few marriage proposals. I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day, probably due to some earlier traumas related to always being the one kid/teen with no valentine on February 14th. But I am not here to rant about my childhood.

All this talk about love, as I hear it, is about Love as a noun. A noun, in the vernacular of Schoolhouse Rock, is a person, place, or thing. I disagree with that concept. Love is NOT a noun. A noun is pretty useless once you get out into the muck that is Life. Love is a verb.

Actions(Verbs) speak louder than words(nouns) when it comes to love. If you love someone, it shows up in your actions. We don't just talk about it; we DO for people we love. We make them breakfast. We put an extra cookie in the lunch that they take to school. We make them chicken soup when they are ill. We take a ballroom dancing class even if we have two left feet. We listen to detailed and minute histories of various comic book heroes we have never heard of. We hold their hands when they are sad. We hug them when they are grieving. We do these things because, even when it is difficult, we know that DOING these things will let the object of our affections know that we love them.

In the classic movie, The Princess Bride(If you haven't seen it, go get it and watch it right now. I'll wait.), Wesley doesn't talk about his love for Buttercup. He shows her how he feels instead by his actions; even when she insults him, he just says "As you wish." I think that is one of the best examples of showing that you love someone instead of saying that you do.

We get caught up in the hype of hearts, cutesy greeting cards, and--I'll put it out there--chocolate, and forget that it is our behavior that counts, far beyond our words. And it's no excuse if you don't have a sweetheart; there are lots of people out there dying for someone to show them any love at all--the homeless, disabled people, and abused children, to name a few.

So today, on this day dedicated to Love as a noun, make a promise to yourself to see Love as a verb. Define your love by your ACTIONS. Don't just talk about it, DO.