Without Love, There is Nothing (as expressed by an orthodox rebel)

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels...and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith...and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing...[for] the greatest of these is love." I Cor. 13:1-3, 13

Paul lists here examples of the three great ideals of antiquity: beauty, truth, and goodness. Beauty: "though I speak with the tongues of men and angels," i.e., rhetorical excellence and perfection, a quality highly prized in the ancient world. Truth: "and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith," i.e., achieving a level of understand and wisdom (both secular and religious) that guides one straight into the heart of the real, also highly prized in Paul's time (and today). Goodness: "and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor," i.e., the life of sacrificial magnanimity that would impress even the gods, the virtuous life dreamed of and desired by every ancient philosopher. Paul takes these three exalted things and reduces them to utter shambles with one simple qualification: without love, these things are nothing (a qualification he makes three times). Devoid of love, they have no substance at all. Without love, all beauty is vanity, all truth arrogance, and all goodness self-serving. Love is the core of their being, and without it they all fade into corruption.

Paul gives love this ultimate position in the scale of things because God is love (I John 4:8). So the truth is, without God, these great ideals are nothing, for in God alone is real beauty, true truth, and great goodness. If you seek beauty without Him, then you will never find beauty at all, but only vain and empty spectacles. If you seek truth without Him, then you will never find truth at all, but only well-constructed and self-satisfying lies. If you seek goodness without Him, then you will never find goodness at all, but only egotistical self-buttressing.  Make any of these things (or anything at all) a god without God, they will become a demon, regardless of your hopeful desires or good intentions. Without the substance of love, the substance of the Trinitarian dance, thrusting outward towards another who is ever-receiving, towards God who is ever-loving, then all things fade to black, the horror and great darkness of hell.

So create your great works of art, and search your books relentlessly, and exhaust every bone in your body for the sake of the least of these. If you do any of it without God as the highest in your life, without His love filling every marrow and joint of your being, then all your efforts are filthy rags.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012