1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version): Love
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I'm sort of ashamed that I first learned of this passage from a movie/book involving a dying woman straddling state lines. Then again the agonizing truth would be to admit crying when reading the novel--after purposely looking for the novel when it did come out in 2000. I have a perverse and morbid anger when it comes to clichés to be honest and the second section of this biblical passage is no exception. Well, up until now.
It has taken an estranged cousin reaching out from halfway across the world to make me examine my conscience by sharing his own stories. It seems wherever you are, love will find you and hurt you. That's why Cupid is drawn pulling on compound reflex bows and having a quiver of blood red arrows instead of tangoing about flinging rose petals and popcorn.
Fittingly enough, the last line of 1 Corinthians 13 sounds exactly like something I would write. In fact I have been jotting down complex bubble diagrams about these three things: faith, hope, and love. For many of us, these words have become cliché--once extremely meaningful, now just pandered about to fill spaces. For me the equation derived from these three words have become part of daily living.
Faith comes from the Latin fidem--Trust. A deep rooted trust in the solidity or reality of something or someone. To accept faith, I had to lose it first. When I was younger and had fallen in love for the first time, I had a rock solid belief that no matter how rough things got, my love would cast aside obstacles. I sought proof in the law and with authorities: judges, monsignors, even and finally, parents. I believed that prayers for a love born out of innocence were enough. That no matter how bleak it seemed it would work out and the relationship would grow. I knew then that He would not let me down. I knew for a fact that He would find a way. I trusted. He had other plans. I lost my faith then, and very nearly, my life.
Much later on I learned that to have real faith, one must first strive to understand the why and what of what they trust. With understanding, comes acceptance of real faith, as faith is an active living thing we must nurture.
Hope. You would think that hope would not be able to survive without faith, but it does. Life is biblical like that I guess. I wandered for a long time in a wilderness wherein I thought myself to be a mighty hunter. I created psalms for every season and ended up looking for grapes where there were none. I was alone and the only time I remembered to pray was before eating, sometimes not even then. One of my favorite cousins once told me after the umpteenth bad experience I had that if he was in my shoes he would have committed suicide after the first round. He also said that it was given to me because I could handle it. Made sense. Still does. In fact it materializes what hope is for me. The belief that things will turn out better no matter what. The patriarchs all seem to have gone through mandatory periods of un-faith if you do a survey of the old testament. For some of them: their flocks perished, their women become barren, and their kids left to work elsewhere. The others had it even worse: their flocks left for greener pastures, their tribes disbanded and sought out capitalism, and the women demanded monogamy. But, no matter how bad it got, it appears that they never lost hope as evidenced by their prayers.
I think I was born with hope built in as a standard. Which, point in fact, is part of the reason while I'm still alive to write this essay for you. I've never lost hope, so I hope that brings you comfort whenever things get really rough, so that you may have hope. Hope is a circular thing it appears.
At this point it may appear that hope and faith seem to be interchangeable things, if not directly linked. I reiterate though, that for faith, one must recognize and understand what they trust that they have faith in. You can't just look at the Flying Spaghetti Monster and stamp your foot and say you have faith in him. You have to find out what's in the meatballs first. Hope on the other hand, is something you can't quite get rid off. Try to imagine if you will, what 'Hope' had to do, to survive in Pandora's box. Hope apparently has mad ninja skills. Hope and faith are distinct and yet they are distinctly linked because without both one cannot have love.
The problem with Love is that it is both a verb and a noun. So given that, I leave it to you to figure out what it is for you. It's different for everyone. I'll tell you though, when its real, faith and hope are in attendance. When you do fall in love, you won't say, "I heart you." You'll probably be shaking at the knees and be so overwhelmed that it comes out as a croak at first. Then because you have faith in what you feel and because you hope that she will reply kindly--it becomes an actualizing statement.
If you look at 1 Corinthians 13 you'll notice that even Paul of Tarsus mostly describes rather than defines what love is directly. Closer reading shows that he was actually laying down the conditions for what Agape meant in relation to being a Christian and living a life of selfless love; worshipful love. See how confusing defining what love is can get? Plus Agape was probably pretty far down the list for those old patriarchs anyway, don't you think? They were probably too busy trading eyes and teeth. What strikes me about Agape in relation to love is that when you read about it you get a sense of prayerful action. I think that's the ticket actually. For me real love is like a living prayer. Hope and faith become bread and salt for the way of a pilgrim. That's what happens when you start dealing with these modern terms like Agape. You end up referencing obscure anonymous literary works that involve an equally anonymous guy muttering prayers all across Russia.
There must be a common ground between the old and new when understanding and accepting love. I posit that, that ground employs faith and hope as grass and soil. Love is what you make of that earth you've been given to nurture. And we are ennobled to nourish it with a simple equation through an active life of prayer. We pray in faith out of a hope for love.
The answer to that equation, becomes your life.
