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January 9, 2006
In the winter of
1969, a
California
professor began an experimental class. “I did not want it to become
an encounter group. I was an educator, not a psychotherapist. I
wanted this class to be a unique experience in learning. I wanted it
to have a definite, yet loose, framework and be of broad interest and
import to the student. I wanted it to be related to his immediate
experience. Students with whom I was relating were, more than ever,
concerned with life, living, sex, growth, responsibility, death, hope,
the future. It was obvious that the only subject which encompassed,
and was at the core of all these concerns and more, was love.”
Few will dispute
Leo Buscaglia’s claim that love is at the core of human concerns.
Yet, his Love Class “raised a few eyebrows.” In the
Faculty
Center,
one professor “called love—and anyone who purported to teach
it—‘irrelevant!’” He wasn’t alone. “Others asked mockingly and with
a wild leer, if the class had a lab requirement….”
Love Class
met on Tuesday evenings. Enrollment grew quickly within a year to 100
students of all ages, experiences and sophistication. Buscaglia
taught it without salary and on top of his regular teaching load.
Students earned no credit.
Their first
major lesson about love was learning how little love matters to people
who study the things that matter. “Love has really been ignored by
the scientists. It’s amazing. My students and I did a study. We
went through books in psychology. We went through books in
sociology. We went through books in anthropology, and we were
hardpressed to find even a reference to the word love.”
Drawing from
three years of teaching Love Class, Buscaglia began writing and
speaking about love. He lectured often. When asked for the title of
his presentation, he was characteristically direct. “Love.”
“Well, you
know,” event planners said, “this is a professional meeting, and it
may not be understood. What will the press say?” Tactfully and
professionally, Buscaglia resolved their problem. How about Affect
as a Behavior Modifier? Perfect. Acceptable. Scientific.
Everyone was happy.
Love…learning
love…Buscaglia never felt comfortable reducing consideration of love
to a simple definition. Doing the next best thing, he wrote his 1972
book, LOVE. But in the practical sense, if we are to look for
and talk about love, we need something shorter than a book, something
easy to think about, something we can carry with us through each day.
Searching for
agreement on what love is, there’s no better place to look than
to the most quoted passage read at weddings around the country. A
profession of love on the most important day for two people, it has
spoken to the heart of man across the ages.
Love
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have
not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If
I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not
love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor
and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain
nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does
not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
perseveres.
8Love never fails.
[1Cor 13:1-8, NIV]
If this is love,
we should be able to know it when we see it.
If this is love,
and if we know what we see…what does it say about the things we DO
see?
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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The "NIV" and "New International Version" trademarks
are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by
International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the
permission of International Bible Society.
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January 23, 2006
To Know Love When We See Love, Part 2
September 12, 2005
Kiss, Kiss, I Love You
See Archives
for more past editorials.
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