Hanging on the wall in our bedroom is a wedding gift from the man who married us, who also happens to be my hubby’s former college roommate. It’s a portion of the “Love Chapter” from the New Testament, and remains one of my favorite scriptures.
I was raised in a small Southern Baptist church a few miles from my home and those Sunday School and VBS lessons and sermons have stayed with me.
I don’t attend church regularly these days (it’s a long story), but I still hold these words close to my heart and attempt to live by them. Oh yes, I fail miserably at times. But I try. I want to be a better person, a kinder, more compassionate, more patient, less judgmental person. I hope I never stop wanting this.
Certain things happening in the world, both my RL world and in the fandom, seem to be sorely testing me these days. This is a season in which unselfishness giving and love and peace are emphasized and celebrated, and yet—I see and hear a lot that is the opposite of that.
But I know I have to keep trying. In spite of my natural tendency to melancholy, it seems I am also essentially an optimist. And I won’t give in to all the dissent and division and discouraging attitudes I see around me. That means the bad guys win . . .
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If 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.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love 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.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When 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. Now 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.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthian 13: 1-13 NIV
Be extra-kind and extra-forgiving. ~ Richard Armitage
the armitage effect 