82

[Mary Ann Clark]

What is Love?

This topic is a difficult one for me right now. I’ve spent the last two months dealing with my mother’s aging, her hospitalizations and what plans should be made for her future. My mother is 82 years old and has been living on her own until just after 4th of July. I went to visit her just after the holiday, ended up taking her to the hospital the day I arrived and have been dealing with repeated hospitalizations since then. She lives about a 6-hour drive from where I do so most things have to be done long distance. This period has highlighted for me what love really is as I have had to draw on my own love of my mom almost daily to keep from getting too exasperated about what’s happening to her, her constantly changing confusion and my long-distance responsibilities. On the other side of the love equation, I am increasingly aware of the love given to me by my sweet husband and the many friends I’ve made here in sunny Arizona. My husband’s not a big talker (as many men aren’t) but he’s always there with a quick hug and the little extra help around the house that means so much. There are lots of ways for each of us to express our love for our families and friends and sometimes we forget that just being there and doing the little (and big) things that need to be done mean so much, not just in times of crisis but every day.

One of the things that religions like Santeria teaches is that the doing (what we religion scholars call praxis) is more important that the saying (that is doxis). It’s important, especially in the area of human interaction, to tell those around us that we love them, but just talk without action is meaningless. How we express that love in our day-to-day lives says more than all the telling in the world. Within Santeria we express our love for the Orisha, by our daily actions of devotion and we experience their love for us in the daily gifts of good fortune and blessings that come our way. There is very little theology in Santeria and its sister religions--nothing that you have to believe. Instead this is a religion of ritual, of participating in the big and little practices that make up our religious lives. I was struck early on in my learning about this religion by how often the word “work” is used to describe ritual activity. We work for the Orisha and they in turn work for us. As I grew and eventually became fully initiated into the religion I learned just how much work was involved in being a Santeria practitioner. Our rituals are hard work, they involve hours, often days of intense physical activity. It’s not possible to stand around and tell everyone how much you love the Orisha—you’d be laughed out the door. Instead you have to get in there and help move the ritual forward by your willing hands.
I think that kind of a religious orientation is good preparation for the world of real life where all of us will, at one time or another, have to show our love for ourselves and others not by words but by work, sometimes hard physical work, but sometimes the emotional work of hanging in there when the going gets rough and the rewards seem few or far away. I can tell my mom I love her but it is by trying to make her life work as well as possible given her current circumstances, by calling her when there’s nothing new to say and by badgering her medical team for updates on her condition that I really tell her that I love her and will continue to love her no matter what.

-Mary Ann