Love Never Ends

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

The last of the specific characteristics of love, as described by Paul, is that love never ends. Love is eternal. It existed before we were born, and love will continue beyond our individual lives. This endless flow of love allows us to participate as individuals during our life on earth – or not – but the flow does not go or stop depending on our participation. Love endures, which is an expression of its flowing and eternal nature. Just because an object of our love moves on to another lover or to another stage of life does not mean that love has ended, only that one particular expression of love has taken another shape – painful as that can be.

As we explore Paul’s writings about love in the 13^th Chapter of 1 Corinthians, it becomes increasingly clear that love permeates every aspect of our being. Love animates every part of creation. Because God is love, love is ever-present, everywhere, always and forever. Too often, we limit love to an emotional expression we feel and share with a limited subset of people. In reality, how we love any one person is how we love everyone. Love is a state of being with, not a transient state of feeling.

Least it seem I am making love out to be cold and impersonal, let me emphatically state that love is intensely personal. Love recognizes and celebrates our individual natures – but true, lasting love is a celebration in communion with others. It is not so much that we are not special and unique creations in and of ourselves, but so is everyone else! We are special and lovable in relation to and with others. Remember, love requires relationship; it is not a reward for individuality. When we do not feel the love around us, it does not mean we do not live surrounded by love. It only means we are not in a state of being to recognize or accept it. Sometimes our lives become so distracted by our busy-ness or by our self-centered distractedness that there is no room left for love to penetrate. We seek love in the wrong places, or our understanding of love is too limited to perceive it. Love is always expansive in nature, seeking to include more of others and of ourselves.

Love never ends, just as God never ends. Our individual lives will end, but our loving relationships continue to impact generations after us. I believe, at physical death, our soul enters this eternal flow of love that we only sense dimly from earth. It is a blessing to be participative co-creators in the river of love that is always and ever available to us.

Let us make 2016 the year of love, as love was meant to be.