love (..a reminder)
January 29, 2011
“Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” – I Corinthians 13:4-8
Even though I am not a Christian, I still find wisdom in the Bible.
Jesus said to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We need to extend the kind of love mentioned above to others, but also turn this love inward, and heal ourselves.
This is something worth remembering. How quickly we forget.
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Wandering Spirit 
i love this passage. when i was in around the fifth grade a family friend took me to her church and also gave me a bible. i still have that bible and it still has that passage highlighted (in very faded yellow). i don’t remember what the sermon was about or who i met that night but the one thing that has always stuck with me are those words. someday i hope to be married and i plan to recite that.
one thing i do know about love is that it’s not always easy. sometimes we are jealous, sometimes it’s hard to have hope, and sometimes love ends. but these words always inspire in me some kind of hope, even if it’s blind.
it’s probably the best passage in the Bible to highlight. these words matter, even if we cannot always (or often) live up to them. and when we can’t, we need to forgive ourselves… and others when they don’t live up to the standards we hold.. tough stuff..I might write a blog on forgiveness sometime.. it’s something I don’t know how to do very well..
but.. i digress.. as usual..pardon me.
no.. real love is not easy. there was a Christian hip-hop group called DC Talk.. they were mostly.. pretty bad.. but had a tune called “Love is a Verb.”
Very good title.
lots of folks think love is just a feeling, but it’s a lot more than that..a big part of love is taking loving action when there is no feeling there, or when the feeling is to do the opposite. very difficult indeed.
is love really blind? i guess it depends on the case.. sometimes love… is loving someone who you can see really clearly, and choose to love that person anyway.
damn, it’s a hard thing to be human, isn’t it? at least there are some words that can bring comfort, meaning and even a bit of truth for us, now and again..
one more thing. thank you for the reminder. yes, we need to love and take care of ourselves before we can try to do that for others. i always forget that. maybe that’s why sometimes my love is not good enough. because it comes from a place that isn’t completely healed. and maybe that is why sometimes i don’t have the strength to take care of others because i need to take care of myself.
thank you for the good post. it’s short and sweet.
i don’t know if any of us will be completely healed in this life.. we always carry with us some wounds, it seems. no person’s love is bad because it comes from a place inside the person that is not completely healed. if you were completely healed, loving others would be easier, and therefore, maybe less important. love, real love in involves sacrifice and wisdom. these things we learn the hard way.. by being wounded.. if we are fortunate, and paying enough attention, we can learn from the experiences and people that have hurt us.
sometimes, it is the broken-ness inside us that can keep us compassionate, and help us to continue to relate to others. it is our own pain that sometimes can help us love. doesn’t seem that way a lot of time.. but this can indeed be true. it depends on our perspective.
i’m not saying i’m this smart.. or that i put my own words into practice most of the time.. i often don’t… and still have LOTS to learn.. one thing that is difficult to learn is that knowing something intellectually.. understanding something with my mind, is a very different thing from transferring that knowledge into my heart, and putting it into practice with the right actions.
regarding taking care of ourselves and others.. I think that is why Christ said to love our neighbors AS ourselves. It’s a matter of balance. if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t take care of others either. the thing is to avoid taking care of ourselves by making others worse.. that’s important.
sometimes, we unintentionally make others worse during times when we have to take care of ourselves, but that is different. it’s our intention that matters. it is ok to say no sometimes, to protect yourself, take care of yourself.
as far as your love being “not good enough..” please do not judge yourself too harshly.. as I said in the reply above.. it is so difficult to be human..
please don’t measure what love you give and how to give it by the standard set up by the Bible. i believe the verses i quoted set up an impossible standard.. one we cannot possibly reach at times. maybe even most of the time..
i believe the bible teachings are guides for us. the bible is not a book to hit against your head in condemnation, (or others’ heads, for that matter) regardless of how many other people use it that way.
i think if we see certain passages as guides and inspiration, not commandments or judgments, we will feel much better about what we read, and about others, and ourselves.