Amor Vincit Omnia means ‘’Love conquers all’’. It is a philosophy of life that entails that every human being one day will be conquered by the term love. An important message of the philosophy is that, no matter what happens, love will overcome all obstacles. Carl grew up around his father, who represented the idea, which is that life is transparent and predictable and therefore Carl adapted his father’s perception of life. However, in the short story ‘’the order of things’’ by Judy Troy from 2007, the main character Carl gets to experience the philosophy ‘’love conquers all’’ first hand and his life is changed for good.
The narrative is focusing on Carl and his relationship with Lily. Carl has throughout his entire life lived by his father’s idea of life: ‘’Never take chances […] always be prepared of what’s next’’ (p 2. Ll. 54 – 55). Carl is a regular person with a decent job as reverend at the local church; he is decently married and has a daughter. Carl is a pastor which means that he has dedicated his live to preaching the word of god. Carl starts having an affair with a woman named Lily. This is a little ironic because as a pastor you should be able to live by the word of god. Yet, he is breaking one of the Ten Commandments which is ‘’you shall not commit adultery ’’. However, the reason they got together in the first place, was because they reminded so much of each other ‘’they were each in their early forties, married to teachers; they had recently lost a sibling to cancer. And oddly they looked alike: six feet tall, with pale eyes, angular features, and light hair’’ (p 1. Ll. 3 - 5). It was like they were connected to each other somehow – and therefore it was inevitable that they got together. A difference between Carl and Lily is that Lily is the one who takes the initiatives in the relationship. She is the one to arrange secret meetings in their relationship. For example it is Lily who registers the hotel room ‘’I registered for us’’ (p 1. l. 17). They don’t share the same perception of life either. As mentioned earlier Carl shares the same idea of life as his father. Lily is on the other hand more open minded and doesn’t believe that life is transparent and predictable at all. However, Lily manages to pass her perception of life on to Carl ‘’ Now, like Lily, he knew better. It was impossible to know the future and therefore impossible to prepare for it’’ (p 2. Ll. 56-57). Lily manages to get through to Carl in a way Carl’s wife never was able to. It tells us that Carl finally starts to appreciate his life in ways he never could with his wife. When he met Lily the puzzle fell into place. He became happy with his life.
Carl’s life revolves entirely around Lily. For example we have the weather in the text which has a symbolic meaning. It changes throughout the entire story. For example when Lily and Carl talks for the first time the sun is shining ‘’In the August wind, with the afternoon sun’’ (p. 1 ll. 9). The sun is also shining as they drive to the hotel for the first time ‘’Lily had arrived first, and stood in the sunlight’’ (p 1. ll. 14). The sun symbolizes hope and perhaps even a bright future. The weather is peaceful at first, but throughout the text the weather becomes colder and strife filled. This tells us, that their affair probably would have an unhappy ending. It turns out that their affair had an unhappy ending when Lily got killed in a car accident.
The church does also have a symbolic meaning to Carl and this is why they didn’t use the church as a venue at first. It is sacred ground and therefore Carl didn’t feel like it’s good to bring adultery to the house of god ‘’the church was off-limits, Carl felt, it was a line he couldn’t cross, though at the same time he couldn’t bring himself to think of any aspect of their relationship as a sin’’ (p 2. ll. 75 – 77). However, they started to use the church as a venue despite of Carl’s previous position in the matter. This symbolizes that the church is starting to lose its symbolic significance ‘’From then on they met at the church as often as they could’’ (p 3. l. 97). However, it completely loses its symbolic significance to Carl at the end of Lily’s funeral ‘’He would walk away from the church, he thought. He had strayed too far from it. He didn’t know what it meant anymore’’ (p 5. ll. 160 – 163). It is a social environment where everyone knows everyone, which is also the reason that there are so many people attending to Lily’s funeral. It is a setting with beautiful surroundings as Carl discovers after he has met Lily ‘’the white peaks of mountains, the narrow streets of Worland, the snow starting at midnight and falling early into the morning’’ (p 3. ll. 107 – 108). He begins to notice the little details after he has met Lily. The most important setting is the church because it is sacred ground and it represents the opposite of what Lily and Carl are currently doing. As mentioned earlier in my essay, Carl does not feel its right to bring their adultery into the house of god. Yet, it still becomes their secret venue. It is important to the setting, because Carl agrees to commit adultery there and therefore he puts his love for Lily higher than his faith. Love conquers all.

Carl must take an important choice in the short story: He has to choose whether he want to follow his feelings or his rationality. You could say that Lily stands for emotions and his father stands for rationality. Carl had always had the rational thinking, yet when he met Lily his philosophy of life changed for good. Carl decides to let go of his rational thinking and give into emotions instead. This is exactly the opposite of what his father taught him ‘’Feeling came first and thought came after; that was the order of things. Was it the opposite of what his father taught? How had he lived so many years without knowing that feeling came first?’’ (P 3. ll. 109 – 112). Carl does also realize that his father’s philosophy was completely wrong. It is impossible to know the future, and therefore impossible to prepare for it. The story’s name is ‘’the order of things’’ and the significance of this title is priority. One must figure out what is most important in one’s life and then prioritize it over everything. Carl found out that the most important thing in his life was the philosophy to love.