愛情，不是得到就是學到

是情人節或是愁人節，有沒有情人不是關鍵。當然沒有情人是會有點滋味，只是在一方面失落，在另一方面可以得著。找到心意相通的情人，快樂加倍，憂傷減半。多少人在歌頌愛情的同時，亦不少在詛咒它的無情。一個人不一定孤單，兩個人或許會比一個人更寂寞。苦與樂，都是愛情的真相。

愛情，不是得到就是學到。*

Thomas Merton(多馬梅頓)是我很喜歡的靈修文學作者。他的書，只看一次不會明。看過他的書，就知道孤單不一定可怕。在孤獨中的折騰，都是思考的土壤，吸取養份，蘊釀內在的生命，等候領悟破土而生。愛，當然是其中的領悟之一。以下是他對愛的詮釋，如此的瞭解，豈不是在我們所迴避的孤單中詮釋出來愛的真相嗎？

在這個情人佳節，祝願每一個人，不管有沒有情人也快樂！

“But to love another as a person we must begin by granting him his own autonomy and identity as a person. We have to love him for what he is in himself, and not for what he is to us. We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him. And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which ‘transforms’ us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things a he sees them, love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible. But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation ‘into the other’ while remaining ourselves, we are not yet capable of a fully human existence. “ – from Disputed Questions

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone- we find it with another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded. At best, we will receive a scrambled and partial message, one that will deceive and confuse us. We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love- either with another human person or with God.“ - from Love and Living

 *(自於吳淡如的書)