Love.

i was looking through my collection of snail mail today and found a letter sent by joyce:

"if i speak in the tongue of man and of angels, but have not love, i am a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. if i have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, i am nothing. if i give all i possess to the poor and surrender my body to flames, but have not loved, i gain nothing.

love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

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 perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 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 my childish ways behind me. now we see but a poor reflection 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.

and now these three remains: faith, hope and love. but the greatest of these is love."

- corinthians 13

my circle of devout christian friends are pretty something.

-.-