Love

My cousin Hammie, aka Heather Ann, aka Ham Slamwich, took this picture a while ago near where she works.

I love this.  Okay, well, I love graffiti.  I have a soft spot in my heart for "street art."  Okay, yeah, technically it is vandalism, but I still like it.

I love this especially because it is sage advice and such a beautiful thought expressed in a less-then-lovely construction site.

Which, really, when you think about it, is a lot like life: Beautiful thoughts in a construction site.

The process of building something is usually only beautiful to the person who sees the end result and understands how each element of the process fits together to achieve that.  In life, I think that sort of understanding is called "enlightenment" or something.


For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Cor 13:12

And the letter continues: and now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.

These are really famous verses often read at weddings, which seems so puzzling because they honestly seem more fitting for funerals... the word often used for love in English-written Bibles in these verses is "charity" which comes from the Latin "caritas" which is the love of God above all and unlimited loving-kindness toward all others. We will know fully once we are fully united with God, which seems to be something that happens once we are in heaven.  We sometimes get brief glimpses here on earth, though.

I just like to think of this as that as God knows us and loves us beyond measure, our faith and hope in Him is dwarfed by His Love for us.  God actually understands that we only see a small tip-of-a-pencil part of the entire process and understands we get frustrated and hope dims and faith becomes uncertain. Still, He loves us through it and lets us have some of that Big Love to share with each other.

So it does seem that all decisions and directions must be taken on faith and hope, and when we allow love to set the course, "...all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well..." Julian of Norwich.