In honor of the
alleged Mayan Calendar end-date, 21 December 2012, this is my contribution to
the End of the World, whenever it may come.
LOVE: an analysis and commentary of 1 Corinthians 13
by Eva Caye
Excerpt from New International Version (NIV) [found at http://www.biblegateway.com]
THE
LACK OF LOVE:
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not
have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
To ‘speak in tongues’ was once considered a gift of the Holy
Spirit, called glossolalia. From
dictionary.com:
noun -- incomprehensible speech in an imaginary
language, sometimes
occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy, or
schizophrenia.
A person found speaking in tongues was often treated as if
they were being touched by the Holy Spirit, for sometimes they spoke languages
that actually existed, which perhaps some in the room could interpret. I have, allegedly, personally experienced two
instances of ‘speaking in tongues’. In
the first, three people who were members of the same church tried to convince
me that it was an important manifestation of the Holy Spirit. When one looked at the others and said, “I
think she needs an example, ready? 1, 2, 3....” and they proceeded to babble at
each other, I cried at their pitiful attempts to force such a manifestation,
though they thought I was crying because I ‘felt’ the Holy Spirit in them. In the second, a ‘spiritually adept’ person stated
that deliberately speaking in tongues would magically attune a person to some
mystical spiritual state in which prophecies could be made. After he deliberately blathered nonsense for
a good five minutes, he proceeded to predict circumstances I will never see,
such as me dying in childbirth (unknowing about my previous hysterectomy).
Nowadays, we call it gibberish, diagnose it as ‘word salad’,
and treat it according to our personal background beliefs. My personal beliefs are, if the Holy Spirit
truly inspires someone to give them a verbal gift of tongues, it would only be
a valuable gift if it were comprehensible to at least one person present. I am not discounting the possibility by any
means that this could occur, and I suppose speaking in tongues provides some
sort of spiritual fulfillment for the speakers.
Regardless, this first verse is absolutely correct: if it is not done in, with, or for love, it is
meaningless, the crashing of percussion instruments with no rhythm, simply
noise, no manifestation of spirit.
To me, the REAL essence of verse one is that almost ALL human
speech is just as worthless. How many
worthwhile things do you hear of a day?
Here are some phrases I would find worthwhile hearing:
“...And I want my entire fortune left to [specific charity].”
“911, there’s a [tragic circumstance] at [specific location]!”
“I do.” [marriage vows]
Why do I consider those phrases important? Because they provoke actions to demonstrate
actual love upon one’s fellow humans, or animals, or the Earth.
2 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 do not have love, I am nothing.
Prophecy and miracles – I believe in both. I have researched prophecies since 1979 or
so, and I have often asked people if they have ever experienced miracles,
listened carefully to their stories, and tried to assimilate them into a
framework of knowledge. The two purposes
of prophecy are a) to forewarn us about imminent tragedies, and b) to get us to
change our ways so those tragedies do not happen. The purpose of miracles is to demonstrate
that they result from scientific principles we do not yet understand, and the
overwhelming number of those principles are based on spiritual activities which
juxtapose with matter in ways science has yet to determine.
‘...fathom all mysteries and all knowledge’ is a powerful
reminder to me of the use of intelligence.
I know an incredible number of intelligent people, many of whom are
moral and/or spiritual. I also know, and
know of, vast numbers of intelligent people who have few if any morals. Some sociopaths are so intelligent they have
perfected lives of exquisite, socially-acceptable public fronts, all the while
abusing friends, relatives, indeed anyone they can, just to support their own
image of grandeur. I definitely wonder
about the moral capacity of corporate executives who do not grant their lowest
workers a living wage, for example.
If you are spiritually advanced or intelligent enough to
predict the future, how do you use those powers? If you use them to take advantage of your
fellow humans, if you do not offer your services with love, I fear for the
state of your soul. Yes, you can charge
money; I want my mechanic to tell me of imminent brake failure! Yet if you deliberately inspire fear in
people with your abilities just to skim them of their cash because you want a
new car, I more than fear for the state of your soul. I fear for the state of our society, for this
seems to be the prevalent attitude right now, causing untold suffering throughout
all social strata and socioeconomic levels.
‘Faith that can move mountains’ is what gives me hope. It indicates a spiritual power, a state of
readiness, a knowledge that one can handle the vagaries of the future or even
the end of the world. Yet, without love,
what miracles even matter? Would you
perform a miracle before vast numbers of witnesses just so they would love
you? The love YOU give is the miracle;
the faith YOU inspire is the miracle. All
‘miracles’ not performed WITH love, for the support and well-being of fellow
life-forms, are worthless and desperate measures for attention, adulation,
self-aggrandizement. If you are
spiritually strong enough to do miracles yet perform them for your own selfish
interests, you are trying to accumulate spiritual power given to you by others,
which will not last if you do not give them love and faith that they can do the
same. You end up living in a spiritual
vacuum and your spiritual energy will be spent, eventually drying up.
The purpose of performing miracles is to share spiritual power,
and that is done with, by, and for love.
Those witnesses and recipients then learn that they, too, can develop
spiritual powers, ‘faith that can move mountains’, and share those abilities
with love. The true power of love is
growth; if the emotion you think is love causes people to wither, turn inward,
reject others, and lose willpower, you are not experiencing true love. If you project true love, your loved ones
brighten, always look forward to new endeavors with and for you, delightfully
offer to share your burdens, and pursue their interests and goals with
enthusiasm. What kind of miracle would
it be if everyone were to learn to love like that?
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give
over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain
nothing.
How many people would
give to charities if the government did not offer tax relief? That is the measure of a man, to give when it
does not matter to anyone but the recipient.
To give whether it inconveniences you, and knowing you will get nothing
back out of it. Although I immensely
respect Robert A. Heinlein’s concept of Pay It Forward, and have even used it
on occasion to assuage other people that I really do mean to help them out with
no strings attached, I still consider it a ‘string’, a condition upon giving
that I prefer not to employ. What
matters is giving from the heart, giving in the spirit of love, giving with the
knowledge that the person is being blessed with a bit of your love, in the
hopes they thrive and grow and learn the spiritual value of possessions.
Boasting – I’m
guilty. I love knowing I can accomplish
X, Y, and Z, that I ‘did it all myself’, that I spent innumerable hours
perfecting my craft, or that I made it through some hardship and survived. How many people look upon me as if I am nuts,
though? How many people listen to my ‘accomplishments’
with jealousy? How many people feel
shame if they have not achieved what I have achieved?
What matters with both
of these is to do it with love. If I
give of my possessions or money to a cause which matters the world to me, I can
release that blessing with no regret, never wanting it back, with full
assurance that I have made someone’s life easier or helped build a better
future for us all. If I market my newest
book, it is because I have filled its pages with love, with life lessons, with
ideas and energy that I hope to inspire in all my readers. If I mention my achievements to my family and
friends, it is always with the hope I can inspire them to think of their own
potential, help them avoid pitfalls I have seen, and always to offer assistance
to them in any expertise I have.
This is love: I went drastically out of my way to set up my
first book with a print-on-demand publisher because my sister wanted a copy she
could hold in her hands, instead of a simple ebook. My sister in turn gave me several pieces of
pottery she made with her own hands during a class she took. I personally discovered the information on
the class and sent it to her so she could learn how to do this art-form she had
always wanted to try. She has always
encouraged me to be an author. We
inspire each other to greatness, simply out of love.
THE
QUALITIES OF LOVE:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does
not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
Patience is something we should all work on. When I feel impatient, I tend to find there
is a reason for it, a block of some kind, which shows me something I can do to
perfect or correct a situation so the outcome is enormously better than it
would have been. To be patient with
other people can be a trial, for they may have not assimilated a new situation
which impinges upon their ability to work/react/relate at your level. When I feel a struggle to keep patient in a
situation, I concentrate on finding the love.
Do I really love what I am doing or the purpose for which I am doing
it? Do the people who are keeping me from
progress need a loving hand to guide them?
Kindness is in critical short supply these days. It inspires me to hear religious leaders such
as the Dalai Lama proclaim kindness is their religion. Yet, what is kindness? The dictionary refers you
to ‘benevolence’, thus defined as a desire to do good to others. In other words, love inspires us. As such, love is a life-force, an impetus of
our behavior, of our capacity to grow.
As such, I see love as the working currency of the universe,
the ‘aether’, the substrate of spiritual power.
Who knows? Love could be gravity,
or magnetism, or love could be the strong atomic force which keeps subatomic
particles associated with each other. “...it does not boast, it is not proud” means
to me that love has no personality, so who is to say that it is not what holds
the fabric of spacetime together?
Love is frequency, love is action, love is the flow of cosmic
forces. Love is being in ‘the Zone’,
when all your actions are righteous, and perfect, with no doubts or need for
thought at all. To be patient is to
recognize that the time for action has not yet come; to be kind is to recognize
that some more ‘life-force’ needs to be applied to a situation. And those people who can tap into that
astonishing force, whether it be for one instance or one ability, can and do
produce miracles.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it
is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Slanderous, self-seeking, impetuous, judgmental behavior does
not represent true love. These are human
attributes we derive specifically from our animal nature. Once
again, with this verse we see that love has no personality. It is a powerful force which people and those
animals within our influence (who can develop this anthropomorphic resonance
with us) can tap, producing acts of heroism and beauty, acts of sustenance and
evolution, acts of attraction and accretion, acts of progress and
transformation.
In fact, most human behavior you can observe does not entail
love, even if it looks like an act of kindness.
We are even deliberately trained out of it, such as in medicine,
teaching, and service positions, lest it affect our judgment, productivity or
efficiency. Nowadays ‘detachment’ is all
the rage, although loving your career is encouraged. It appears to be an odd inconsistency, yet in many
instances I agree to the need for some detachment, simply because most people
do not understand or define love as an impersonal, benevolent force. If detachment were defined as 'impersonal love', I would be all for it. But for most people, love comes with conditions,
and if they don’t pay you enough, you can feel free to move on to a new
career. To find the rare activity,
performed with true, non-judgmental, unconditional love is so outrageous to
modern sensibilities that we take pictures of it and put it on the news.
We all know that is how things should really be. We all know we should incorporate more true,
unconditional love in our lives. We know
what is really important. It is my hope
that this little essay will remind us all to ‘tune in’ to that channel every
day, indeed at all times.
6 Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth.
I have long wondered why humans would develop the capacity for
speech only to tell lies with such frequency.
If we cannot put our trust in words, why speak at all? This is why gestures and actions are truer
than words. Words are mere symbols, a
convenience to the expression of complex thought processes. To cultivate outright lies makes a person no
better than a ‘dumb’ animal, a brute with no consideration for his fellow man.
Yet consider propaganda, advertising, editorials, literature, or
even this very essay. With seven billion
people on Planet Earth, there are seven billion perspectives, and it’s not always
easy determining which perspectives are based on truths. A company founded by a person who truly
believes in, say, the health benefits of his product might hire an advertising
firm whose people truly believe the only important thing about ads is that they
sell the product to anyone who will buy it.
If unwitting people are hurt by that product and the company goes under
from all the lawsuits, what service is rendered?
Take literature. I’ve
written several books and plan to get them all published. I’ve heard literature referred to as ‘telling
lies for fun and profit’, yet I do not design my books with those intentions in
mind. I write books with engaging
characters, environments, and conflicts so I can interest readers enough to help
them notice the truths I have found in life.
If they relate to those truths, we are all better off; perhaps I help
them avoid situations that could be dangerous, or provide them with words they
may not have considered using to avoid such situations. What matters is that my books are a labor of
love, which I deliberately write to enrich the readers’ personal lives as if
they were the characters in my book, learning all those lessons by proxy. What matters is that I help them think of
ways to enhance their lives, find more interests, and grow in wisdom.
THE PERMANENCE
OF LOVE:
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
There are two reasons why I consider love a universal force –
evolution, and physics.
What is the evolutionary principle that encourages mother
animals to care for their young? Some
species have it to a great extent, some not at all. Some can even lose that capacity, such as a
notable propensity for mother pandas rejecting their tiny cubs. Yet why would parental investment vary across
so many species? An astonishing number
of bird species, for example, show the male caring for offspring, with some
species of amphibians, bugs, and fish thrown into the mix.
Nevertheless, higher life-forms have a propensity for
nurturing young. There must be a reason
why their nature dictates such a thing as preservation, or otherwise species
would have never evolved beyond procreating in such numbers that some were
bound to survive. This is what I feel is
the ‘attractive’ power of the universe, and I call it ‘love’. Whether it hard-wired an evolutionary
necessity into the DNA of any given species, I cannot say. The likelihood seems far greater that the vital frequency of the animal resonates to its own DNA such that copies of itself have greater resonance than copies from similar beasts, thus the mother/father care
for the offspring as much as they care for themselves.
To me, this aspect of ‘love’, this resonance factor, is the
one most people understand deeply. We
prefer to be with people like ourselves.
Yet in the orchestra of frequencies that can be interpreted as ‘love’,
this one is like the outermost core, the static of a lightning bolt instead of
the pure lightning itself.
Which leads to conservation of energy, allowing transmutation
between states of matter but not disintegration of matter itself. It always perseveres, like love always
perseveres. It always ‘hopes’, if you
can imagine hope to be denial of a state of rest. Love brings to mind zest, vigor, striving
for ‘greater’, ambition, and initiative.
This is why I feel we have not adequately explained entropy. We can point at a myriad of entropic
examples, yet why has the universe not come to a standstill? This is why I think love is a substrate of
the universe, in particular, of life itself.
Love is the life-force, creating order out of chaos, growing,
experiencing, and arranging for its own perpetuation by survival of species.
Now, consider all the powers of love mentioned before. Preservation of the species (donating to
charity, calling 911, wedding vows), miracles (accessing an unknown force that
can give superhuman strength or will to survive an otherwise deadly injury or
disease), accomplishment, sharing spiritual knowledge, encouraging others to
partake of the power of love. It is when
we can feel this juxtaposition of spirit, of love, as if with our physical
bodies that we truly feel most ‘alive’. And
what do we do when we feel most alive?
We procreate, we strive for meaning, we help others. We share the love.
8 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.
If love never fails, and love is the binding force of the
universe, then the universe will not end.
The-world-as-we-know-it surely will, at some point. I almost feel as if the author acknowledges
that humans, as beings using language to codify knowledge, will realize at some
point that all these intellectual exercises we perform are what hold us back
with respect to love, to spirit. As if
the real meaning in life is not to be found in imaginary dollars, nor in
accolades or accumulation of goods, but in action, in feeling spirit and love
power your acts of structure and meaning and organization, to build a greater
reality than existed before. At that
point, we will need no words, no predictive faculties. We will be like gods, fueling our expansion
as a species with miraculous powers now beyond imagination.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in
part,
10 but when completeness comes, what is in part
disappears.
The fact that this has been separated into two verses
indicates its power to me. We are
incomplete, with faculties beyond the imagination of lower life-forms. What is this ‘completeness’ spoken of? What could make knowledge and expectation
(prophecy) disappear? What will make us
whole?
Love. To be one with
the universal Impetus, whatever force it is that causes the stars to stay their
courses, that causes gravity, magnetism, heat.
The Divine, the Animus, the root of all order and the essence of all
understanding.
The permanence of love has heretofore been personified as a
being instead of as a force. It was more
natural for us to identify with a ‘god’ than with, say, an unseen force of
change such as the wind.
HIGHER REALITIES ARE BASED ON LOVE:
11 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 the ways of
childhood behind me.
This verse points directly to the evolution of man as a
spiritual being. Here, in these bodies,
we are like children, playing in the realm of matter. These bodies will die, but our spirits
survive, with death our rebirth into new spiritual bodies. When the bodies die, our spirits will have no
need for matter, for we will have ‘graduated’ as students of humanity,
understanding pain, pleasure, growth, and disintegration.
12 For now we see only a 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.
This physical world is
all reflection, quite literally. A
spectrum of light falls upon a physical object, most of those frequencies are
absorbed, and the ones that do not are reflected, giving the object a ‘color’. And such a tiny fragment of energy that it,
though our limited perspective grants enormous meaning to it!
These frequencies are
only the ones in the realm of matter.
Can anyone really say that spiritual substance, spiritual frequencies,
and spiritual attributes do not exist if they can only be perceived by
spiritual beings? Who can surmise the
true scope of the universe? Those who
ride the waves of love.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and
love. But the greatest of these is love.
Namaste.
