A Commitment is a Promise Made from Love

A 'contract' is a way of making sure our interests are met in our relationship with another person, a business, a career. But contracts are a shallow framework for what really matters in our lives - friendships, long-term partnerships, marriages, parenting, or dedication to a vocation. Before long, if we've lived a life of bargains and contracts, we may find our hearts in a deep longing for something with more depth and meaning. And, in this opening, perhaps we might start to consider what it is to live in a frame of 'promises made from love' or, said another way, a life of covenants and vows to something bigger than ourselves.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.

Here's our source for this week:

A commitment is a promise made from love

A commitment is a promise made from love. A commitment is making a promise to something without expecting a return - out of sheer lovingness. There may be a psychic return in a good marriage, or from a commitment to a cause, or from making music, but that is not why one makes it or why one does it ...

There is something that feels almost involuntary about a deep commitment... Somewhere along the way you realised, I'm a musician... I'm a scientist... I love her. I am his beloved...

In this way, a commitment is different from a contract. A person making a contract is weighing pros and cons. A person entering into a contract doesn't really change. She just finds some arrangement that will suit her current interests. A commitment, on the other hand, changes who you are... Rabbi Jonathan Sacks clarifies the difference: "A contract is a transaction. A covenant is a relationship. Or to put it slightly differently: a contract is about interests. A covenant is about identity. It is about you and me coming together to form an 'us'. That is why contracts benefit but convenants transform."

David Brooks, from 'The Second Mountain'


Photo by Emma Frances Logan on Unsplash