Valentine's Day 2012

So much of what I write is conjecture that is drawn from my personal understanding and view of the world. When it comes to love I like to look to something much greater than myself. I am, and will forever be a student of love. I want to love more. I want to love better. As good as love gets to me, I consider it to be a limitless resource. So, I will never stop reaching, and growing, and trying to give and receive more love.

When it comes to my favorite examples of love, I see a very common underlying theme, be it real life, artistic impressions, or written word. The love that I admire always mirrors what I read in a the biblical passage 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

We hear it read at weddings and during church services. But there is so much knowledge and truth contain within those scriptures, that it simply cannot become a cliche in my eyes. No in my opinion, it is something to be studied.

1 Corinthians 13

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1	If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2	And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3	If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4	Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5	it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6	it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7	Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8	Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9	For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10	but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11	When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12	For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13	So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. So I will continue to study and learn love's lesson plan. Thus far some of my experiences have been difficult and excruciatingly painful. But, I have very few regrets. I would choose love all over again every single time. I'm grateful for the love that has been given to me. I am confident the pureness in which I have given it has effected others in a positive way. Feelings of love have the ability to stay with us after the person we interacted with is no longer present. It's all that I have to hold onto from those who are no longer in my life, and vice versa. But it's more valuable than most of what we could tangibly acquire....LOVE....