There's probably a 4th farmer, too, who did everything exactly like farmer #3, except when she looked out at the weeds, said to herself, "What an incredible farmer I am..."
There's a torment in the culture about the word love. I spent a summer in France when I was young and remember being seriously amazed by the verb, aimer, which means BOTH "to love" and "to like."
Je t'aime...I love you.
J'aime bien le vin....I really like wine.
Je vous aimez....I like you OR I love you.
Je ne l'aime pas....I don't like it/him.
I believe this is right. Anyway, I remember thinking quite hard about what a difference it made that in their culture, there wasn't such a BIG DEAL about when "like" becomes "love", and how context and modifiers were necessary anyway to communicate what one meant.
I was there at age 17 and here at home, girls and young women would OBSESS over "I like him" vs. "I like him as a friend" vs. oh god, here it comes, ta daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa: "I love him".
Getting the verb out triggered a cascade of fantasy, unrealistic expectations, projections of Ward and June Cleaver...mental furniture rearranging. I think sometimes we never saw each other as people after that, there were so many measuring sticks.
I had a stoic old uncle, fundamentalist preacher, who never knew what to make of my radical UU divorced self. I really loved the old guy and had practically herniated myself to get his attention when I was a little girl. He'd make a GAME out of not smiling, so much that I'd feel a little hurt. But I still SENSED something real and kind was in there (his own training didn't show him affection) and I never decided he was "mean". Anyway, worlds apart in philosophy, theology, and politics....he was the only relative other than my parents who ever came to see me at college. (Of course, now that I think of it, my mother probably urged him into it.) I was touched though, very. He hated driving, hated travel, hated big cities. Braved them all to come take me out to lunch. And when I visited him later at their remote little farm, one morning he looked at me and said, "I nearly wore out the knees of my pajamas praying for your soul last night!" and I said, "Well thank you. That must be why I slept so well."
Uncle never said to me, "I love you". But I knew that he did. In every single way he knew or had been taught, he tried to show me what he believed love to be, and in some natural way, I sensed he cared.
So even though I believe many factors in my uncle's belief system were repressive, and in the larger cutlure, are fueling destructive divisiveness...old uncle was one person I know loved me. He was someone I respected a great deal, even while I would never yield my feminism or independence to his point of view. Because he spent every Saturday evening for years, year after year, in rural nursing homes, holding the hands of and singing old hymns to lonely, abandoned sick old people.
He could've talked all day about love, never did...but when I learned that about him, I knew who he really was.
Love is kindness.
Love is thoughtfulness.
Love is affection (which we don't recognize often, since the culture has obliterated touch boundaries and subtleties).
Love is sacrifice (not self-abuse, but choices that we feel organically right about, not brainwashed into).
Love is, in my church, "Respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every person."
love (I feel this here, it's like wanting to bless everyone),
Hops
