"Money Can't Buy Me Love..."

The Beatles sang:
"I'll give you all I got to give, if you say you love me too.
I may not have a lot to give, but what I got I'll give to you;
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love.

Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no no no, no."


Poll after poll confirms the claim that people are more love hungry today than, perhaps, ever in the history of the world. Partly as a result of the rapid pace of life and the resulting loss of intimacy, partly as a consequence of the fluidity of contemporary populations with roots being torn up and transplanted, and partly as a result of a loss of our primal, human connection to life, earth, and community, the capacity to be love-aware has risen in direct proportion to the decline of its availability. We all long to be deeply loved, cherished by someone, the focus of another's heart.

False representations of something called "love" are on parade in nearly every movie, magazine, TV program and culture. These are often nothing more than self-centeredness cloaked in the disguise of romance.

But real love is defined by Jesus as "lay[ing] down one's life for his friends." It is "other- focused" (John 15:13). That is to say, it is not fixated on demanding its own way, fulfilling its own desires, or pleasing itself. This authentic love is evidenced through a continuing investment in others -- a sharing of one's life and resources with others. This is love.

Here's what St. Paul tells us about it:

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

St. John says that this authentic love is demonstrated best in the manner in which Jesus acted toward us. He further said that the love of Jesus Christ is the template for the love we are to demonstrate toward one another. As St. John has written: "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another" (1 John 3:16).


Which brings us back to the Beatles. There's a lot of cheap talk about love and loving. Honestly, for many people "love" comes down to getting "what they want, the way they want it, when they want it, ...and they want it right now!" But love isn't a commodity that can be bought and sold on demand. It is actually more like a art -- something that must be learned by experience and refined by constant practice. Christians acknowledge that we learn love from Jesus. As St. John said: "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

"Monkey see, monkey do." :)


So if we can't buy and sell love, if it's not an object but an art, then why do we so often act as if love arrives or thrives only in a profusion of material possessions and the trinkets and toys of life? Perhaps this is the product of living in a world where we are constantly bombarded by the message that money does, in fact, equal love. Under such a daily brainwashing it is difficult to maintain our focus on the simplicity of love's requirements. All love demands is the lover and the loved. Elementary, eh?

It's like one of the greatest of all recorded love stories states:

"Flood waters can’t drown love, torrents of rain can’t put it out. Love can’t be bought, love can’t be sold—it’s not to be found in the marketplace." Song of Songs 8:7 (The Message)

Hey, that's what God says about it! So, whatever they're offering in the marketplace, whatever they're trying to sell you in the movies, books, magazines, and TV shows you've seen, DON'T BUY IT! It isn't the love you're looking for or the thing for which you were born!

Love isn't purchased; it's home-grown. It is rooted in the heart and bears it's fruit in the lives of others!

Let's start a new wave of revolution...let's become a subversive movement...an underground movement that is a loving force on the earth. Instead of provoking conflict, let's provoke love by living lives of obvious and consistent love. A love revolution! Isn't that what Jesus started?

I love ya! (And that's the truth!)

-Old Suit