LIMITS OF LOVE

It is not always that when you smile at someone he or she will smile back at you. Most of the time, they will, but sometimes this will not happen. Nonetheless, never stop smiling. There is profound gain in doing good.

Note that when one departs from life-giving principles one then dies.

The law of reciprocity dictates that to every cause there is a definite effect. On the other hand, face it, dear reader, not every stimulus produces the expected reaction. That this is the case may not really be your fault. Note that. The recipient or target of your attention may just be unable to predictably respond, he or she may just be damaged
.
Love is strange. Love is not easy. Love hurts. Love is so powerful.

It is because of such characteristics of love that few people truly love and that when true love manifests itself in their midst many fail to recognise it, instead it shocks them.

Mary was living with HIV. Even before Chansa married her, Chansa knew that this was the case. Despite his knowledge of his fiancée's sero-status, Chansa went ahead and married Mary. The whole community was incensed. Chansa wasn't deterred though. He knew what he was doing. He was negative himself.

‘Ayitaya,' that was the loud gossip that did its rounds in the community and never went away and kept them giggling. Just like it is common in every community, it was a clear case of widespread schadenfreude.

Mary and Chansa now have three children, all without HIV.

What is grossly amazing and thoroughly annoying for Chansa's relatives is that Mary seems to be an ass. To them, her quality as a wife is questionable. Her home management is bedeviled with many flaws; Mary could surely do with additional training in the roles of a kitchen in a house; repeatedly, meals that have come from her kitchen have been nauseating, they have been heard to complain.

Well, some of it is indeed true. Sometimes, Mary treats Chansa not with the amount of respect that is required of a cultured wife. Sometimes, she disagrees with him in public, an attitude of hers which often has been a source of discomfort for Chansa.

In a nutshell, it is true that Mary does not really appear to love Chansa. She does not suit him, many have openly said.

Despite the flawed character of Mary's, Chansa has steadfastly remained by Mary's side. When people, including his relatives and friends, ask him why he has kept such a ‘cheap woman' as his wife, why he suffers her uncouthness when he can easily do better, all he says is that he loves her.

No one understands him. Some people even think that Chansa was ‘worked on', that he is bewitched, that his conduct is a result of an altered mind, a consequence of juju. The truth, however, is that there is no juju at work in Chansa's life. It is only that Chansa truly loves his ‘sorry, aberrant, poor and diseased,' wife dearly.

Love, you see, is truly blind. It does not segregate.

Love is an unshakeable attitude of mind. Love is the firmly held conviction that what gives life meaning is to unconditionally spend it founded on the service of others. Love is the courage to live one's life rooted in principles that place the interests of others on the same platform as those of the self.

Love allows us to see that other people matter just as we do.

When you truly love someone, you will do anything to ensure or safeguard their welfare, knowing that in the process you may also be safeguarding your own. When you love someone, it hurts so bad to see them fail to appreciate your disposition towards them, but then, the pain quickly passes for you know that their lack of appreciation is not your fault, and you quickly forgive.

He loved people. He knew they were lost, that their way of life then, their culture, was not in keeping with the dictates of fairness, commonwealth and survival. It was a segregative society, a society riddled with iniquities and poverty. There was oppression and there was slavery.

After carefully studying the culture of his community, he was convinced that there was need for change, change for the better.

Dear reader, note that all people that truly love will be badly hurt someday. Love has its limits. Love does not shield anyone from pain. People that truly love are ready, for the advancement of the cause of life, to suffer pain on behalf of others. Just like a car has shock absorbers, people that love are the absorbers of the pain that is generated by the world's ignorance and idiocy. They are sublime, and they are rare!

Mary had one such person and she didn't even know it!

In time, this man embarked on a mission to effect the change that was required. His main message was that people should love one anther just the way they love themselves. His was a ferocious campaign.

However, his mission for change caused concern in greedy and self-seeking religious and political circles of the day. His conduct was even viewed as treasonous. That is how his elimination was deemed as necessary and sealed.

Here was a man that had dedicated his whole life to the betterment of society and yet the same people that he was seeking to improve, inspired by his deep love for them, plotted his assassination.

In excruciating pain and dying, despite it all, he retained a clear presence of his mind and with his realisation that love is the ultimate redeemer, and that there was no other truth than that, he forgave all of them, knowing that their actions were devoid of truth and knowledge.

In life, up-to-now, there is no other example of sublimeness, of magnificence, of the sanctity of sacrifice, of the way we all ought to live than that. Nothing at all beats that!

Very few lead such a life. Nonetheless, that few live this way does not mean it is not possible. It is and all people need to tailor their lives on this example. Even politics and economics need to be inspired by such a principle.

Love is superior to all things. Anyone that knows and practises this truth shall suffer pain in his or her life but he or she shall live a full life nonetheless, and even in those stormy times that shall come his way in his life, he or she shall know deep peace. Should he or she die, he or she shall die without a bother, in peace and with the knowledge that, in time, some people, many people, shall realise the profound meaning of his or her actions, just how ignorant they had earlier been about his or her goodness.

Dear reader, next time you flip a switch to turn something on and it doesn't go on, yes you may suffer some inconvenience, but please do not blame yourself. Just examine the switch carefully and you just might discover that there is a loose wire somewhere, that it is damaged.
Yes, sometimes we shall smile and people will not smile back at us.

Yes, sometimes a particular cause does not correspond to the observed effect. Yes, though this law of reciprocity is sacrosanct, it operates under the assumption that the environment within which it is operational is without disruptive factors, an environment that conduces to the equation working out the way it should.

For no fault of your own, there will be days, my dear reader, when you will not be appreciated for all your good, even divine works. Never stop! You may even be killed for them. But then there is truly no better death than the one that comes as a result of standing up for good, for life, for the wellbeing of others.

Never give up on a good thing, a good principle.

Love is not judgmental. Love is considerate. Love is brave. Love never dies. Love is the very spirit of life.

When betrayed by someone you love, the degree of the pain that comes corresponds closely to the depth of the love for them. The more you love the more painful the betrayal. But what is amazing is that regardless of how intense the pain of the betrayal may be, forgiveness quickly comes and peace reigns.

After eleven years, Chansa and Mary are still together today. They are expecting another child. The last time they were seen together they had hearty smiles on their faces. No one is laughing at them anymore! The community has learned its lesson.

Truly blessed are those that shall found their lives on love. It is they that shall know true freedom and, through such magnificence, shall elevate themselves to the status of God. And few shall initially understand them but many shall eventually follow them.