Love Is.

Love Is.

In the ancient texts,

the apostle Paul offers this:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind...”

And so it goes..

Just before the apostle conclude this paragraph in his letter to the Corinthians, he says:

“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 completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”

If I may, I would like to expand on the words of the apostle.

For I too have had the divine opportunity to love and be loved.

And from these experiences I have learned:

That love IS patient.

It will wait for as long as it takes for you to summon the courage to summon it.

Love is not human nature.

With the way we treat each other,

it cannot possibly be.

Love is   spiritual

          supernatural

          sacred

Love comes in the stillness.

Love comes in the absence.

Love started where I ended.

Love is not deserved nor earned.

It is not bargained for.

Love is grace. A deep well

that freely quenches the thirst of the multitude.

Love multiplies

and feeds the hungry.

Love does not burrow, it expands.

Love speaks    UP

               OUT

               RIGHT

Love defies empire.

Love is not nations or skinfolk.

Blood and Breath,

sticks and stones.

Love does not break YOU.

Love is   a truth teller

          a life giver

          a soul healer.

Love saves.

Love is the balm

for the wickedness of the world.

Love preserves me, you, him, her, them.

Love is passed on and it passes on.

Like the river,

you cannot step into the same act of love twice.

Like the river,

love flows surely to the sea of our lives.

For God so loved you and me

that he gave his only.

Love is your all.

It is that which you can give

but cannot possess.

Love is.