Kendra E. Olson
Biology in South India '05 I loved India from the moment we met. Drunken infatuation, a child-like faith, the heat that wraped around me in an embrace that didn't let go. I immediately wanted to know everything about India; I wanted more of India. But Love is patient, Love is kind, So time on my side I let India come to me, and India showed the all of his best. Color, Life, Time, Tea, Women in sarees, Men in moustaches, the whirlpool of winding roads and the stares of curious stranges, and I loved it all. Love does not envy, it does not boast. I thought I loved India more than my own affluant origins; I thought my love of India could never be jaded. My love was deep enough to make change without effort, to bend, to mold. My love, understanding, my relationship, connection, my intimate sight, made me somehow better yet Love is not proud, it is not rude. So slowly, as India became something I could touch, as India became less of an idol and more of a friend, less a lover and more a compnion, I resented all of India that I didn't see from the moment we met. I resented the dirt, the grime, the thin, weary, and empty palms. I whithered with the change I couldn't make, the minds that were closed to me, the faces that laughed when they should have been crying. Love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. So I came to begin again; I opened my eyes to India to know the real India, to see him again but with new sight, to feel his pulse but with a new appreciation. This time I saw the injustice, I saw the hate, I saw the prejudice and worst of all I felt the reluctance to change. Every empty palm, every frightened woman, every burning bride, and every murdered old woman screamed out the pain that nobody heard. I was mortified by what my love showed me, but Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. I had to love what I saw not because I loved the truths that India revealed to me, but because I loved the possibility that India shared through his flaws. India bestowed a responsibility in me to accepter him as he is, but love him as he could be. I must defend India as he is now because he cannot be anything else. Love always protects, always trusts. In return for my protection I must ask India to open his eyes to the world that he has entered, to ask the questions, to seek the help, to know and understand himself, to know and understand why in some ways he must change and to know that in other ways he must fiercely cling to his principles.
For Love always hopes, always preserves. So I love India still. I love him for what he will someday be, I love him for who he is now in light of the potential that he has. I cannot love all of what India does, I cannot love all of what India condones, but I have strived to understand that I will never know enough of India. I judge prematurely, I evaluate incompletely, I set myself on a pedestal above India that is not always justified. Yet it is the the view from the pedestal that has opened India to me, that gave me the strength to love him. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Love never fails. Corinthians 13 : 4 - 8
