Falling in Love Part 1
March 8, 2026
Falling in Love Part 1
Welcome to This Week’s Daily Reflections on Falling in Love.
Few experiences have the power to rearrange our inner world the way love does. One moment we are standing on familiar ground; the next, we are swept off our feet, changed, enlivened, and wonderfully undone.
Falling in love is one of the most beautiful things that happens to us. When we hear the phrase, we almost instinctively think of romantic love, and for good reason. Romantic love has shaped human history, culture, and imagination. It truly does make the world go ’round.
I recall that when I was ages three, four, and five, older children in our apartment building skipped rope on the sidewalks while singing “The K-I-S-S-I-N-G song”:
John and Mary, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage,
Then comes the baby in the baby carriage.
This jump-rope rhyme can be traced back to the early 1900s. In its playful way, it offers children an unconscious introduction to love, relationships, and family. The names change, but the sequence remains the same: courtship, love, union, and new life. The romantic is culturally engrained.
Think of the countless books, plays, movies, poems, songs, and works of art devoted to people falling in love. From Shakespeare to comic books, from opera to cinema, romantic love has captivated us across centuries and cultures. It is one of humanity’s most enduring stories.
Yet the romantic is only one expression of love, and only one type of love that we can fall into. The word “fallen” itself is revealing. Why is love so often described this way? Some loves ripen slowly, like fruit on a tree. Others arrive suddenly, like love at first sight. Still others emerge through mysterious and unique processes. Yet when love comes, it often comes uninvited, unplanned, and irresistibly. We call it “falling” in love because it is involuntary, compelling, and surprising. It is as if we tumble off a familiar ledge into a new inner landscape, losing our ordinary sense of orientation. No wonder people describe falling in love as being “high” or even “drunk;” Some refer to falling in love as “lovesickness.” It truly is an altered state of consciousness.
As we know, not all love is romantic. There is love of family, love of friends, love of God, love of ideas, callings, and creative pursuits. Recently, I spoke with a dear and imaginative soul who had been introduced to a life-changing idea in her field that, in her words, “swept her off her feet.” She said, “I have fallen in love with this new concept. It’s on my mind all the time. It gives me so much life and happiness. It wells up inside me as a creative urge. I am so in love.”
This week, we will reflect on the many ways we fall into love, and how these experiences enliven us, disorient us, and awaken us to new dimensions of being alive.
Spiritual practice: Reflect on a time when you fell in love with a person, an idea, a calling, or an experience. What did this falling awaken in your life force?
Self-inquiry: Why do you think falling in love can feel so disorienting for you?
Prayer:
Dear God, Thank You for Your gift of overwhelming love. It sweeps me off my feet. Amen.
