Fruitful Contemplations: Love

The representation for love has to be a sweet mango.  There just isn't any better fruit in the world, right Pedrito?

Tremors practically set in when I consider writing about Love as a fruit of living in the Spirit.  What can I say about a topic that is so high, deep and wide that it fills the entire universe?  God is Love, and God is everywhere. You could talk all your life about love, examine it, explore it, live around it, express it, marinate in it (oh, wouldn't that be nice?), give it, receive it, and you still wouldn't be done. So what can I say about it here in a short blog post?

I've been thinking about that.

What first occurred to me, in considering which spectacles to peer through at Love, was to look at what it isn't.  It's kind of like looking at an unfamiliar bird and saying, "Well, it's not a woodpecker. It's not an ostrich. It's not a robin, it's not a gull or a pelican or a sparrow or a duck."  Naming enough things that it's not, can be somewhat helpful in speculating as to what it is.  So let me take a famous descriptor of love (the "what it is" which we're all used to) and turn it around so that our mental sensibilities are heightened by the topsy-turvy wording.

The description of "Not love" is pretty ugly: it is impatient, unkind, envious, boastful and proud. "Not love" is rude, self-seeking, short tempered, and keeps a list of every wrong you have done to it.  "Not love" delights in evil and grinds its teeth in frustration when confronted by the truth.  "Not love" leaves you out there to be hurt, is distrustful, refuses to see hope in a situation, and gives up at the slightest sign of hardship. "Not love" fails, even when it's supposed to be there forever, even when it has made promises to always be there.

Well.  That last paragraph brought to mind specific people's names, including mine, as I read some of the descriptors.  I know what "not love" looks like, feels like, acts like, both from the giving end and the receiving end.

But that's not all, I know what the "Love is" list looks like, too, from the giving end and receiving end:  patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not rude, unselfish, long-suffering, forgiving, delighting in good and loving the truth.  Protective, trusting, hoping, persevering, and staying by through thick and thin.  That list also brings to mind people's names, including mine.

I think of it this way:  the Spirit is like the wind. You can't see where it goes. You hear it, but you don't know where it's coming from or what the shape of it is. Similarly, living in the Spirit is experienced by most of us, in some way. I think so, anyhow. And that's why we all know on an experiential level what Love is, and what Love isn't.  Someone has written it into our hearts, even when our hearts are kind of sandy and the message tends to blow away.

It seems like some people do more living in the Spirit than the rest of us, though.

I stopped to think about who I would consider the most loving person I know in the whole entire world, and I thought, and I thought. I intended to write an anecdote here about that person, whoever it would be. But I think it's better to invite you to consider who you have found to be the most loving person in the entire world (based on the 1 Corinthians 13 descriptors).  I'd like to hear about that person in your comments, and why they came to mind for you.

Wouldn't it be nice for your name to come to mind for someone else pondering that question? Choose daily to live in the Spirit and to see each person through the glasses of Love.  At least, I suspect that's a start.