No matter how powerfully or eloquently I speak,
if I do not speak in love,
it’s all just noise.
If I know everything
and understand life completely
and have miracle-producing faith
but do not act in love
it’s all for nothing.
If I give away everything I own
and die a heroic martyr’s death
but do it without love,
I have just wasted my time.
To love is to be kind.
To have time for the other.
To be generous, humble and gentle.
To let go of keeping score of faults,
and instead to rejoice in what is good and true.
To love is to bear willingly,
to trust deeply,
to hope boldly,
to endure patiently.
Love does not die.
Beliefs will end; languages will fade;
knowledge will exhaust itself:
knowledge and belief are not the whole picture.
But there is a wholeness,
and we let go of the part for the whole.
When I was a child
I spoke and thought like a child.
Becoming an adult, I abandoned those ways.
Now we see through foggy glass,
but in time we will see clearly, face to face.
Now I know only partially;
in time I will know fully—
and know that I have been fully known.
We have these three great gifts: faith, hope and love.
And the greatest is love.
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__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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