Chris Cole FRSA

For those of us old enough to remember, '80s rock band Foreigner had a huge hit with the song 'I Want to Know What Love Is'. The song tapped into mankind's universal cry for love, with lyrics including the line 'In my life there's been heartache and pain / I don't know if I can face it again / Can't stop now I've travelled so far / To change this lonely life'. Many folks can identify with that, and also with the signature lyric from the song: 'I want to know what love is / I want you to show me / I want to feel what love is / I know you can show me'.

Now I do not really know who the guys in the band were asking the question in their search for love. They were probably looking for human love from a relationship. Or maybe they had a more inspired and Divine quest - they had a great Gospel choir on backing vocals, giving their all with passion. Who knows?

I truly hope the band found what they were looking for, or that they at least have not hardened their hearts with cynicism to protect them from the many 'heartaches and pains' that inevitably face us on the journey of life.

We all, deep down, want to know what love is. We want to give it and we want to receive it, it's as fundamental to our existence as the air we breathe and the water we drink. Love can take many forms, in families, with friends, with lovers. And it can take many abuses from ourselves and others, that twist our perception of love with pain until we, like Foreigner, get to the place where we lose sight of its meaning and cry out for the truth about love.

So where do we go for the answers? What do we even mean when we say 'love'? Romantic love is great, but after six months it will fade and then the real business of relationship and commitment will begin.

Long term married folks will talk of a deepening love, yet it's hard won and comes with scars. It seems that real love is more than feeling good, and that it costs. Even the best of human loves isn't perfect. Just think of those closest to you, whom you value the most - even they have let you down and hurt you. And we're all painfully aware of just how much our own ability to love could improve.

People who have endured suffering in their lives often excel in showing love. They show us that the difficulties of life and relationships, paradoxically, are the fertile ground where love grows and matures.

Love is a big subject, and needs some big answers. If you're looking, try tuning in to the lyrics of the songs on Cross Rhythms 96.3FM as part of your search. But the best and last word comes from the Good Book itself:

Love is long-suffering (patient), it's kind, it doesn't envy and it isn't proud, it doesn't force itself on others, isn't always 'me first', doesn't get angry easily, doesn't keep a record of other people's wrongs, it hates evil and it celebrates with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always looks for the best and love never gives up. and so faith, hope and love remain, but the greatest of these is love. (The Bible, 1 Corinthians Chapter 13).

This article was originally published in the Plymouth Shopper, a group of 7 localised community newspapers produced by Cornerstone Vision, reaching 62,000 homes every month in Plymouth. Each edition carries positive news stories and features, and provides local businesses, community groups and organisations with a very localised media platform to reach their own area.