Love Never Fails

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, does not boast.

It is not proud. It is not rude.

It is not self-seeking.

It is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. 

When I was a kid memorizing this passage as a VBS song, it all seemed so straightforward and simple. Kind? Does not boast? Not easily angered? No record of wrong? Protects? Trusts? It's all so obvious what these words mean!

Then I got older and realized that some of the words in reality weren't corresponding to their meanings in theory. 

My working definition took "love always protects" to mean "love keeps secrets, if those secrets are harmful or embarrassing to the beloved." "No record of wrong" meant "forget everything wrong done to you." And "not easily angered" was defined as "never get angry."

That last one was the first lie to fall. Some things should make you angry. Injustice is wrong. Injustice towards a child or someone who can't fight back is even more wrong. If you look out on the world and see injustice done to someone you love, you should get angry.

The step from "someone I love" to "me" was a much harder one to make. I only took that step when I realized I'd go mad and die if I didn't. After all, I'm human. If that doesn't make me better than other humans, it at least doesn't make me worse either. I understand when other people have to fight to live. Other people need to offer that same understanding when it's my life on the line.

"Self-seeking" and "seeking to survive" are not the same thing. I had to learn that. It's also not boasting to acknowledge that one has accomplished things. Sometimes, you need to point to your accomplishments to prove what's important to you. Boasting is when you point to your accomplishments as a way to show why you are important.

People are important because they are human. One doesn't need to be or do more than that to be entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But demonstrating what is important to you is a critical part of building trust and of identifying community.

Also, "no record of wrong" needs to be balanced with "does not delight in evil," because turning a blind eye towards an open, ongoing situation that is dangerous, manipulative, or unloving is not loving. Exactly where the balancing point is will change from situation to situation, and from person to person. Sometimes, the circus isn't yours, so you can't take responsibility for the monkeys and sometimes those are the monkeys you trained, so it's up to you to stop the flinging of poo. Basically, know your monkeys, don't let them taunt other people's monkeys, and don't take on circuses that aren't yours.

The hard one for me now is the last series of things; "love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." That's the NIV version. ESV phrases it as "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things." The Amplified version says "Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast in difficult times], and endures all things [without weakening]." 

I wonder why some say "protect" and some say "bear?" I looked up synonyms for "bear," since it's such an old fashioned word. My instinct is to translate it as "carry, hold up, or endure," but ye ole internets also suggests that it could have a meaning more similar to "accept or take" [something negative] or another sense closer to "enclose, contain, hold." I guess it's that "enclose" sense that is similar to "protect," although accepting something negative on behalf of something/someone else could also be a form of protecting.

"Believes all things" is definitely helped by the Amplified's suggestion of "looking for the best in each one." Straight up "believing" is a good recipe for becoming a gull if not taken in combination with "rejoicing in the truth," so that's obviously not what Paul had in mind. One can love someone one does not trust, so whatever he means, he doesn't literally mean "believe everything a loved one tells you." "Looking for the best in each one" does make sense of this tension, at least to me. Looking for the truth and looking for best can be mutually inclusive; trust looks for a perspective that makes sense of any apparent contradictions. I believe that there are far more apparent contradictions than there are real ones.

In an attempt to figure out what Paul meant, I read the Message's interpretation, but it interpreted this as "trust God always," which is good and true, but also seems out of context. The context for 1 Corinthians 13 is how to relate to others within the church; it's all about why love is the greatest spiritual gifting, the one foundation for everything else, so it doesn't make sense for this one random clause to orient upwards when everything else is horizontal. It seems like a Sunday-school, sanitized, Christianized answer to a much deeper question.

Love might not fail, but it's far from simple.