valentine entry

From the Holy Book...
If you like for a question to swirl on your mind,
...read on = )

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

Here's my "swirling question" with these Bible verses - why did the writer, Paul, the saint formerly known as Saul the Pharisee who ordered the death of the first Saint called Stephen, described LOVE as PATIENT first?

Why did he not arranged the adjectives alphabetically? Why PATIENT? Why not start with KIND then PATIENT? Why patient then kind?

Or am I being Shakespearean here that I am much ado about nothing?

Could I be kind without being patient?

Hmmm... interesting question = )

Why should the description of love start with PATIENT?

And why did Paul NOT say love is a feeling? I mean, do people in the past don't feel LOVE as we know it now? Do we know much more about love now because we have today the prevalence of movies and musical overtures accompanied with explicit images describing love?

Or are we simply confused now and they got it right before? How many divorces and failed marriages did they have before ba as compared to the statistics we have now? How many single parent families did they have ba before compared to the single parent families today?

And why did Paul describe LOVE as a result of something? Why not love is "when you hear violins..." or "when you feel butterflies in your stomach..."? Why love is patient... kind... not jealous... not boastful... not proud?

I mean, can one be patient without going through the process and the act of being patient? Kind without the act of being kind? Not jealous without the act of not being jealous? Not boastful without the act of not being boastful? Not proud without the act of not being proud? Not demanding without the act of not demanding its own way? Not irritable without the act of not being irritable? Not keeping the records of wrong without the act of not keeping records of wrong?

And can we do all of these without being patient first?

Here's another thing, if we read through the whole chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians of the New Testament, the whole discourse was written in first person, I.

It is NOT in "we" as in Love is when we are patient and
we are kind = )

Hmmm... interesting = )

Lord, does it mean I do not have to wait for the other person to be patient for me to be patient? The passages is absolutely silent about the "object of love" or whatever is the "object of love" is doing.

Lord, Paul's description is not for them. It is for me, the doer, the first person.

Maybe it is really about all of us who are so busy looking for the right person and asking if he or she is the right person for us that we forgot to ask if we are the right person for them.

Thank you, Lord...