The Love Chapter (Dave's Paraphrase)

February 14th, 2014

If I speak in the languages of humans and of divine beings, but do not have love, I am white noise and static, distortion without melody. And if I have a huge blog following, and can read Greek and Hebrew, and have written best-selling books, and if I can quote whole paragraphs of the Discipline, and if I am just generally more religious than you, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my stuff, and die like a martyr in an inspiring story, but do not have love, I gain diddly.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not condescending or paternalistic or patronizing or rude. It does not employ disingenuous rhetoric: religious code words, race-baiting, gay-baiting, ad hominem attacks, scapegoating, or mansplaining. It does not insist on its own privilege; it is not fearful of science or of being proven wrong; it does not indulge in schadenfreude, but rejoices in the good of others. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for policies, they will come to an end; as for institutions, they will cease; as for the internet, it will come to an end. For we do things only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was immature, I threw tantrums and argued like a child; when I became an adult, I stopped that sort of thing. For now we see dim reflections of our world, our selves, and our God, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. So three things will outlast all this temporary, immature stuff: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.

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