Calvin Prof Writes About Unrequited Love

January 23, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Unrequited love is a universal theme says Calvin College professor and
dean of the chapel Laura Smit.

It's part of everyday life - depicted in movies and described in books.
 Everyone, it seems, has experienced it at some point in their lives.

So why then, asks Smit, do so few actually talk about it, especially in
the church?

Smit explores that question and others in her new book: Loves Me,
Loves Me Not: The Ethics of Unrequited Love.

When Smit came to Calvin as a professor in 1999, she started talking to
students about the issue, and also taught two Interim classes on the
theory of romance.

"Almost everybody can tell both sides, of being both the rejected and
the rejecter," she says. "The challenge for the students was how to
handle both sides in a thoughtful, Christian way."

After several years of interviewing students and Calvin alumni, Smit
wrote her recently published book.

"The goal," she says, "is to offer tools for disciplined
self-examination of our feelings, for accepting responsibility for
things we can control, and for finding grace in those things we cannot
control."

Smit's belief is that if people, particularly young people, had more
support in making the decisions they do about love they would get
married for better reasons and there would be fewer divorces.

Smit believes that the fact that the divorce rate among Christians is
no less than the national average demonstrates that "we clearly are not
doing the marriage thing properly."

In her book, Smit suggests that singleness should be the default.

Contact Smit at 616-526-8580 or lsmit@calvin.edu
For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/unrequited.htm

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Received on Mon Jan 23 13:31:31 2006