As much as there is in the 1 Cor 13 passage on love (see below), I'm struck by is 'not' there...and what is not there seems to lead to a different orientation to the things that are there.
So, what isn't there? One thing, on the order of our common cultural diet, seems to not be related to what we should do...to love. We often look at something like this and only have enough interest to pursue what the 'actions' are...to determine whether or not those appear worth doing. When I consider the pieces of this passage and the tenor of them combined, I am struck by...what love isn't, what it doesn't do. The actions implied seem to be un-named and likely to flow out of out of something else. We want a list, which it looks like it is, but even more, we want a list of things we can do...in an effort, I'm afraid, to force an outcome we imagine. This description of love seems to avoid offering this to us.
What is there? I'm also struck by loves disposition, what it seems to have to believe. Like 'what isn't there', this description's 'To Do' items are equally non-specific in terms of specific tasks and tend to reference things that defy specific time-frames. It feels like love described here is something that results from something believed in, something dependent on a long-term view, something that is not abated by short-term circumstances. Love here seems to come from...understanding, not from feedback, not from results.
While we want something to do, love wants us to know something, to believe in something, to pursue something...all the way to the end. The kind of thing that perseverance needs...to continue despite reasons not to, despite the ease of typical responses to life and the hard things in it...love compels us to.
Perhaps the standard that is often set by this passage is not so much the perfection of accomplishing such things as it is in the believing what it takes...to stick to something (someone?), through think and thin, because it knows where it is headed. Love never gives up...is both the introduction and conclusion.
