Obedience is not Love
Have you ever heard a word a million times, then heard it one day and suddenly grasped its meaning with a clearer, more active understanding?
Some times, when I take the time to think of the lessons that my parents and Grandma relentlessly indoctrinated in us, I find comfort and appreciation for the values they tried to instill. For example, Grandma had us memorize these rules when we were very young:
Google "obedience" and "love" and the first page of results consists of religious websites reaffirming that the words embody each other. Not until Page 3 of results do you get a hit not referring to religious obedience, and that single entry is about puppy training. I don't have a problem with more than half the world believing that religious obedience to a god shows piety. I don't have a problem with instilling respect and obedience in young, wily children (or puppies...).
I do have a problem with forgetting to later elucidate the corollary, which can be devastating in relationships involving two adult humans. It seems fairly obvious, but I am going to write it down to counter, once and for all, the innumerable times "listen and obey" has been whispered in my ear: The absence of obedience is not the absence of love or devotion. Just because someone doesn't do everything you ask them to do, doesn't mean they don't love you.
Three or four nights a week I speak with Grandma on the phone. These calls last anywhere from five to fifty minutes. We discuss the weather, family members, my job, my love life, and often I ask her to tell me stories about "back when". Sometimes she just calls to vent about her children, whom she usually feels have outgrown her mothering. (The youngest of the seven is about 50, so there is likely some truth to her concern.)
During these contemplative ramblings, between long dramatic sighs and depressed silences, she reliably cites disobedience as concrete evidence that they no longer love her.
Unfortunately, hours of consolation would not convince her that love can exist without submission. It would appear that she failed to untangle the concepts on her own and passed them onto me, and I dare say my sister, conjoined. Inheriting the two, entwined, has certainly complicated things for me romantically. [Insert occasions where loving boyfriend fails innocently to "obey" and faces wrath, resentment, and emotional arms akimbo - daring him to say he loves me when he can't even do what I ask.]
I can breath now that I have been liberated from this fallacy after many years of internal struggling. Of course, I'm ages from knowing what love is, but I know that obedience and love cannot be synonymous in the relationships that include me. Instead, each person's desire to understand the needs and feelings of the other are, for now, unquestionably and adequately demonstrative of love.
Some times, when I take the time to think of the lessons that my parents and Grandma relentlessly indoctrinated in us, I find comfort and appreciation for the values they tried to instill. For example, Grandma had us memorize these rules when we were very young:
- Don't tell a lie.
- Share.
- Don't fight.
- Help yourself.
- Be good children.
Google "obedience" and "love" and the first page of results consists of religious websites reaffirming that the words embody each other. Not until Page 3 of results do you get a hit not referring to religious obedience, and that single entry is about puppy training. I don't have a problem with more than half the world believing that religious obedience to a god shows piety. I don't have a problem with instilling respect and obedience in young, wily children (or puppies...).
I do have a problem with forgetting to later elucidate the corollary, which can be devastating in relationships involving two adult humans. It seems fairly obvious, but I am going to write it down to counter, once and for all, the innumerable times "listen and obey" has been whispered in my ear: The absence of obedience is not the absence of love or devotion. Just because someone doesn't do everything you ask them to do, doesn't mean they don't love you.
Three or four nights a week I speak with Grandma on the phone. These calls last anywhere from five to fifty minutes. We discuss the weather, family members, my job, my love life, and often I ask her to tell me stories about "back when". Sometimes she just calls to vent about her children, whom she usually feels have outgrown her mothering. (The youngest of the seven is about 50, so there is likely some truth to her concern.)
During these contemplative ramblings, between long dramatic sighs and depressed silences, she reliably cites disobedience as concrete evidence that they no longer love her.
Unfortunately, hours of consolation would not convince her that love can exist without submission. It would appear that she failed to untangle the concepts on her own and passed them onto me, and I dare say my sister, conjoined. Inheriting the two, entwined, has certainly complicated things for me romantically. [Insert occasions where loving boyfriend fails innocently to "obey" and faces wrath, resentment, and emotional arms akimbo - daring him to say he loves me when he can't even do what I ask.]
I can breath now that I have been liberated from this fallacy after many years of internal struggling. Of course, I'm ages from knowing what love is, but I know that obedience and love cannot be synonymous in the relationships that include me. Instead, each person's desire to understand the needs and feelings of the other are, for now, unquestionably and adequately demonstrative of love.
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