Tuesday Twenty: Counting Ways

This month (this week) brings much focus on love, often in the form of hearts and flowers and sweets. Love IS sweet to the soul. Love blossoms often in unexpected spaces. And, real love always encompasses the whole of a human heart, unshielded. So, I suppose those familiar trappings apply.

One of the most well-known pieces of literature ever written describing love is found in the Bible in First Corinthians 13. It presents a laundry list of love’s qualities surrounded by convincing arguments for its supremacy above all other virtues and pursuits.  And, the picture shown is not one as easily configured on a greeting card as one might assume. The descriptions are full of “not”s that are all too common and daily occurences for most of us. It’s a picture worthy of our pursuit, but not easily attained because of the self-sacrifice and self-revelation involved.

In honor of our culture’s penchant to pursue and acknowledge that greatest of gifts this week, I give you a boiled-down and scrunched-up version of love’s description from the famous Corinthian passage–another up-sized Tuesday Twenty: Counting the Ways of love. This one shows love’s most heart-challenging qualities expressed in those verses–words or the antitheses of “not”s found within. And, there’s eyecandy, too! I popped some of the enumerated words into this month’s tardy, but still relevant desktop calendar. Point-clicky the image above and enjoy!

LOVE IS….

1. essential

2. patient

3. kind

4. trusting

5. discreet

6. humble

7. polite

8. unselfish

9. good-natured

10. forgiving

11. just

12. truthful

13. tolerant

14. affirming

15. hopeful

16. enduring

17. unfailing

18. abiding

19. whole

20. supreme