"What is This Thing Called Love?"

Tim Keller's book on Counterfeit Gods got me thinking about the idols of our age. They are all blended together into our smooth homogenous world system of values. Take for example the common word love. We love our friends, our pets and our favorite pizza, perhaps all equally. We love those who love us, we love that which makes us feel good, and resent employers or parents who try to get us to change. Often what we mean by love is really lust or “need love” based on selfish desire.

My parents' generation and their movies were about romantic love. The old time country music my father sang was of broken-hearted love affairs and invariably sad endings.

Popular views of love fifty or a hundred years ago generally referred to romantic love, as in "falling in love." As I was thinking about these things the other day, I found myself humming a popular tune I learned in high school. I knew only the title, "What is This Thing Called Love?"

It was a big hit back in 1929:

I was a humdrum person
leading a life apart
when love flew in through my window wide
and quickened my humdrum heart

love flew in through my window
I was so happy then
but after love had stayed a little while
love flew out again

what is this thing called love
this funny thing
called love
just who can solve its mystery
why should it make
a fool of me?

I saw you there
one wonderful day
you took my heart
and threw it away
thats why I ask the lord
in heaven above
what is this thing
called love?

what is this thing called love
this funny thing
called love
just who can solve its mystery
why should it make
a fool of me?

I saw you there
one wonderful day
you took my heart
and threw it away
thats why I ask the lord
in heaven above
what is this thing
called love?
(Cole Porter 1929)

The name Cole Porter (1891-1964) was familiar to me, but I knew nothing about the man himself. I was very surprised at what Google showed me in a few clicks of the mouse. His grandfather was enormously wealthy but unsuccessful in getting his grandson to become a lawyer. Cole was enormously talented as a composer and musician and soon was sought after on two continents for his songs and Broadway musicals.

"In his lyrics and melodies...he fixed the smartness and cynicism, the freedom in sex attitudes, the lack of inhibitions in speech and behavior, and the outright iconoclasm that had characterized the 1920's. He is the arch cynic to whom a crushing love affair was "just one of those things" and who could be true to his girl "only in my fashion." He is the dilettante who sprinkles throughout his lyrics cultural, literary, and geographical allusions of a well-read, well-educated, and well-traveled person. He is the nonconformist unafraid of the erotic, the exotic, or the esoteric. He is the sensualist who brings to his melodies throbbing excitement, purple moods, irresistible climaxes. Most of all, he himself is like a character from a novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. All his life Cole Porter was the avid hunter of excitement, adventure, and gaiety; all his life he traveled under the banner of "anything goes". He was the sybarite to whom the good things of life was almost a religion. Provocative in his attitudes, unpredictable in mood and action, irresponsible in behavior, he was truly a living symbol of the decade in which he first achieved maturity as a song writer." (Cole Porter: The Great Sophisticate).

Cole Porter did not hide his homosexuality or his flamboyant life style, although he did marry for convenience, to help maintain an acceptable public image. (At the time this type of sexless but straight marriage was often called in Hollywood a “Lavender Marriage).” From an early age, he renounced God. In an article, "Cole Porter out of Two Closets," The Freedom from Religion Foundation announced, when Cole Porter died on October 15, 1964. “…when he was admitted to the hospital for the last time, accompanied by friend Robert Raison, a nurse who was filling out the admittance form asked Porter about religious affiliations:

‘Put down none,’ Cole replied. ‘Protestant?’ ‘Put down--none.’ Raison spoke up to say that Cole had been a Baptist; why not put down Protestant? Cole refused. Later, even when his condition had changed for the worse, he stood by his convictions. Cole Porter's final words, spoken to Raison just before his death, were: "Bobbie, I don't know how I did it."

Earlier, in 1937, his horse shied and fell on Porter, badly smashing both legs. While waiting for medical help, he grabbed pencil and note pad and wrote, "At Long Last Love:"

You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.
You'd be like Heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive.
You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.

Pardon the way that I stare.
There's nothing else to compare.
The sight of you leaves me weak.
There are no words left to speak,
But if you feel like I feel,
Please let me know that it's real.
You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.

I love you, baby,
And if it's quite alright,
I need you, baby,
To warm a lonely night.
I love you, baby.
Trust in me when I say:
Oh, pretty baby,
Don't bring me down, I pray.
Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby.
Let me love you.

You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.
You'd be like Heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive.
You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.

I love you, baby,
And if it's quite alright,
I need you, baby,
To warm a lonely night.
I love you, baby.
Trust in me when I say:
Oh, pretty baby,
Don't bring me down, I pray.
Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay..

My reaction to the sad biography of Cole Porter’s life and death is to recall that all the days of our lives, from birth to death, each one of us is loved by God. God is self-giving love. He will respond to anyone who accepts Him. Further, God is personal. Many who are aware that they loved by our Creator never acknowledge this—and never bother to thank Him or to inquire what He might like in return from us. What an insult to take God’s love, and many gifts, and then ignore the Giver! We usually feel insulted when we extend kindness to a person in need but never receive a response. We owe God much more than we owe other people—by countless orders of magnitude. God’s love is packaged up in the man Christ Jesus:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God,” writes the Apostle John, (1 John 4:7).

“Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” (John 14:23-24) and “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21)

Cole Porter told us by his life and words that he was not interested in real love at all.  In this life he rose to fame and fortune… then he faded away and perished, soon to be forgotten. So it is in every generation that Jesus calls, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Wikipedia Biography.

"How little people know who think that holiness is dull.
When one meets real thing, it is irresistible."
--C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

"Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'” (1 Peter 1:13-16)

Recommended:  I have found Tim Keller's books and messages wonderfully helpful. Many of his sermons are available for audio downloading. Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, is his latest must-read book.

Lambert Dolphin
November 14, 2010. May 16, 2021.
November 1, 2019 from Newsletter 106.
Email: lambert@ldolphin.org