"Love KILLS everything."

"No one should EVER fall in love with anyone. Or anything. Seriously."

My friend Sarah doesn't rant often (unless you deliberately provoke her) so you sit up and listen when she starts -- it might go uninterrupted for a few minutes. It was a brisk day in the middle of some tenacious week. We ran out for coffee and lingered to examine some Dutch novelty items and catch our breath before we ran into a new old friend, smiling at us from the day-old bread shelf at the door.

That was the guy, I said as we got in the car. That was the guy I told you about from Thanksgiving who made such an amazing life for himself at our age. "What happened after all those things you told me about?" He came back home to marry his wife. "Argh." And the carefully composed three-word sentence that lends itself to title this post. Subject, verb, object. Love kills everything.

And something more about "losing so much value," "wasted potential," and "Do you know how many cancers would have been cured..."

I wrote it down then. Total monologue moment, and maybe I wanted to solidify all the bold things she said. In panic, she grabbed the paper and pen and, in different, more presentable handwriting, wrote "Love is a many splendid thing..." in order to compensate for another of those terrible and shocking moments, when the speak-filter is malfunctioning. Yes, she smiled through the whole spiel and looked over with expectant and cheerful eyes after solidifying her rant with a triumphant groan of mock-frustration.

Still, I've heard her say these things - variations, but with the same key phrases - for almost a year now -- not all the time, but every once in a while. Whenever stories of friends with not-so-great fiances and intelligent, adventurous women who "settle for" (read: become engaged to) guys that don't treat them right. I think that's what she was channeling.

It's amazing how many things coherently lit up in my mind when she looked over hoping I would know that she was just kidding for the most part, that I would know she believed love to be precious, if elusive.

Carol Reinsma, my Colorado summer mom, was telling me about her kids and how, raising them, she strived for them to confidently and carefully make their own decisions and the one thing she really wanted to tell them was that if it came down to marrying someone or adventure, go with adventure. "Of course, now," she said, laughing that bouncy laugh that I'll always remember her with, "here we are with two full-grown single children."

If it took her five minutes to tell me about this one part of her children, she spent five days talking about her daughter and the amazing life she's leading. How the person she's become, how good and fearless, can't even be fathomed by her parents. And their son, working with a company that renovates dilapidated buildings through sustainable processes to benefit the communities in which they were originally designed for. They spoke of these two with such pride, I bristled to absorb everything I could, to be as proactive and eager everyday, to make my own parents proud of their son and the summer he had.

My own mom, earlier this year, and I driving through Sioux Falls and, while I sang Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" she was telling me that sometimes you think you know, and love, somebody. That sometimes it's not as simple as what you thought you knew for sure. That marriage especially isn't what you think it is and there are plenty of broken homes and neglected children that will speak for that -- for love that wasn't enough, didn't last or was never there in the first place. Relatives even, which, sadly enough, is what it took to make the story real. And I stopped singing to try imagining my little cousin (I've met her twice in my life) coping with the reality of her parents' divorcing. Who, in their youth, didn't go silent in terror at the thought?

And Carl Klumpeen. The man. Studied under Cal Seerveld and knew, but hesitated, that he was to be a preacher his whole life. Mr. Fulbright scholar who opened his home to Korean kids wearing Polo sweaters in pastel colors, Canadian kids with black jackets and Californians with Novembeards on Thanksgiving this year. He sat me down with pie and coffee and told me about his life - I got the feeling, as blessedly, I often do, that he wanted to share something assuring and comforting and maybe even wise. And so he did. We drank coffee and talked about how God worked in his life. Must be strange to chronicle your life to a kid when he's so young. Studied at Northwestern in Canada and went on Fulbright to study at the Free University. "In Amsterdam,"

Hold the phone. You were a Fulbright scholar too?

"Heh heh," the way that happily old people do. "You know, if anybody else got it, it would be a big deal. A great honor. But that I got it, well... it's not such a big deal." But one year at the Free University? After ten minutes telling me about the great conversations you had, the amazing friends and the courses you were taking, you came back after one year?

"You know what brought me back? Do you know?"

He sat up from his post-meal slouch and looked across the room. The soft sun was streaming in through the window on his granddaughter who was being entertained by three Korean Int'l students. At the next table, my roommates and some others were playing a card game, explaining the rules to each other over and over again. Next to that table, his wife - a quintessential little old lady - happily chatting with, yes, more Korean students as if they'd grown up next door, as if they'd been coming over for lemonade and wisdom their whole lives.

Like a child, I mean this, he pointed right at her. "I couldn't be away from her for any longer," and the biggest, most unabashed grin I've ever seen to solidify that, with kids and grandkids, he still loved his wife like some lovesick grad student. Luckily, he hasn't had to spend a day away from her in a long time.

And if he's some lovesick grad student at heart, then I'm a happy, old man because I felt some righteous sort of envy toward him. I don't know that I would believe that he knew about her back in the day. I don't know that I believe any of those stories -- "I saw her and I knew that I would marry her one day." It makes for a good story, and I love good stories because they quiet me down with questions, but I don't know that I can bring myself to believe it. It's better this way because I can argue that Carl put up more beautiful thoughts and ecstatic learning for the very real possibility of deceit, heartache and finding out that he was wrong. He can serve his God, raise confident and capable children and make one other person happy, make one other person feel loved every day, for the rest of her life. With her, he can open his home up and make a bunch of college kids feel at home when there's not enough time or money to go back to their families. And he can look at her after so very many years and still actually feel his heart quiver in joy.

Maybe it's the mere possibility of pain that makes his vulnerability illogical or impractical. His sacrifice offering may very well be rejected -- the lady decides otherwise, God does something you didn't expect, he finds he is unable to accept her whole self and everything else that could happen.

Ain't it hard when you discover that

He really wasn't where it's at

After he took from you everything he could steal

How does it feel?

How does it feel to hang on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone

And maybe he would have fulfilled some different scholarly value, brought some different pocket of academic potential to fruition.

It might have happened.

Do we not seek God desperately when we are tossed and trampled? Terribly beautiful and astounding words have been written by loveless and desperately lonely writers. Agoraphobic writers. Depressed, insane, grumpy and bitter writers. Writers that admitted defeat. I kneel in gratitude and humility for them. I am in awe for what they produced that brought so many others to beauty in such a resonating manner.

And still, one has to wonder if they themselves would have preferred to have experienced love. If they wrote so convincingly and effectively on love's wonder and destructive power, what might they have produced about love's glory?