Love, Marriage and Truth - First Corinthians 13

I was just reviewing what love is. The best definition, the one so often used at weddings is First Corinthians 13.  I reflect that I don't read my bible enough. I've read it cover to cover about 4 times and studied it in church and at various universities. Still nothing beats daily reading for improving ones self awareness.  It was the strongest recommendation of Dr. Bob, cofounder of AA, and his wife.  My much admired friend. Dr. Willie Gutowski strongly recommended this to me as well. In his family they had a daily reading at meals.  My greatest biblical teacher, Dr. James Houston strongly recommended daily bible reading too.  He once recommended I read a psalm a day and when I did that I was uplifted as he said I'd be. The Bible is inspiration. I truly admire Dr. Phillip Ney, the great advocate for women and children's rights knowledge of the Bible.  My mother encouraged me from childhood.  She and her sisters were never far from their Bibles but I can be so forgetful and distractible.

I Corinthians 13 says:
Love is patient - Now I can truthfully say that I would argue till the cows come home that I am patient and was patient but when I truthfully reflect on my marriage, I was very impatient.  I am a man who is in fact impatient alot with women in general.  I think that Winston Churchhill beat Adolf Hitler and women after that war let Eva Brawn beat Mrs. Churchill.  I've been terrribly impatient for women to become more sophisticated politically and recognise the divide and conquer of the powerful left. I am frustrated by their naivity in the workplace and the reduction in doctors income directly associated with the increase in the percentage of women. I've been horrified by the sexist female judges who have found hundreds of cases consecutively against me. Mostly I hate abortion and the women who advocate the mass murder of Canadian children. I feel sorry for the mothers who are victimized by the likes of Morgetaller's wife, who has 3 children herself but let her husband kill thousands of Canadian babies.  That said I admire so many women, women like my mother, my aunts, my cousins, my teachers.  I admire women who stand up against the sexual abuse of men.  I admired my wife in so many ways. But I've been an impatient man. And yet I'd falsely think of myself as 'loving' despite the obvious truth that to be loving one must be patient.
Love is kind - I'm mostly kind but I remember with shame some of the things I did and said to those women I would have said I loved. I 'm not saying they were saints.  Several times they almost got me killed and us killed. They were only human but I said unkind things. I used to congratulate myself that I never hit my wife but I 'struck them with words'.  I called them 'unloving' and yet here I was the kettle calling the pot black. If I could take so much back that I said I would. I loved asking Dr. Gutowski how he ensures his marriage is so successful, and admiring his response.  "I never argue with my wife,Bill".  It was true of what I saw to.  Arguments are about "who" is right whereas discussions are about 'what" is right.
I guess the Christmas season is so sad for me because it is a time of family and I realize  each Christmas that I'm alone and that it was my inadequacy in loving that is the reason for this.  I think of myself as a loving person. I even feel I'm loving. But I couldn't last more than 7-10 years living with another despite trying it several times.  After a half dozen years I'd become disappointed with giving and working and no children and all the financial cost of wives and feeling I was ever compromising and blaming. I don't think you can be a lover and a blamer as well. I tell everyone to beware of people who tell you how bad their ex was because they're soon be telling everyone how bad you were.  Young people love to blame and deny responsibility.  As we get older we can see our own faults and begin to accept responsibility for 'our part'. It takes 'two to tango', 'two to love' and 'two to war'.  The legal profession makes a fortune off of blaming and shaming and naming. It's good business but is isn't love.
It does not envy - I don't envy so much now. Well maybe I do. I 'd like a lear jet and I'd like to jet set about the world with someone else paying and go to these insane climate change meetings and talk nonsense and swagger and hob nob. I like a party as much as the next guy if someone else is picking up the tab. I compare too much.  I remember in my 20's I'd look at my wife and she was blond and suddenly I liked the black haired girls and the red heads and wonder if the guys with those girls were having a better time. I remember seeing movies of lots of sex and thinking that I was getting short changed because my wife wasn't 'creative' in bed.  I used to suggest things and get shot down all the time.  I could joke and say most women would draw the line at barnyard animals but I never did suggeest that and what I did suggest would be called lame by todays standards.  So I did compare and I did envy others and that's simply not loving. I also envied my wives.  I'd work two jobs and support them better than I could imagine but they always expected me to pay and I did. I envied pimps who were paid for by women and felt victimized all the time by women demanding and expecting me to pay two fold.  I envied.  I'd  think it was worse because I was married to rich girls but their money went to their stuff whereas my money went to 'us'.  So in the end I was paying all the time and they'd complain if I wanted to anything for myself.  They always wanted me to give them more money while t hey kept their money to themselves.  I envied her for her self centeredness and selfishness. I envied her for being such a princess.  But that's not loving. Yet I thought I was loving.
Love does not boast....I dont think I was a boaster. I've been open and shared about things but I haven't 'boasted' but when I've been put down I've retaliated and that's not loving.  Most of my life I've heard women boasting. Every day on news and tv and in the world around me women are going on ad infinitum about things women are doing.  It doesn't matter any more if a man goes up in a space ship or sails around the world. It 's generally ignored . But if a woman does anything it's like the end of the world. Fireworks and alarms. And always it's said that 'in the past' men were celebrated so today men are not going to be. But I wasn't a man 'in the past'. In my world to day I've just worked and if I get anything it's given to me without fan fare. Men are supposed to work and shut up and mostly that's what I've done. I threw parties and did all manner of celebrating the activities of women. I've been a cheerleader for lots of folk but the fact is I wasn't as sexist as the women are.  They seem to boast these days and my wife certainly would go on and on and on about her achievements.  So I don't think this applies to me.
It is not proud. I have had pride. I know that God works through me but I used to think I was special in ways. I took things for granted and was glad of my achievements. I didn't compete with others but I competed with myself and enjoyed the progress. today I'm jsut holding on and surviving so I know I was proud when I was younger.  That's not loving.
Love does not dishonor others. I was very disagreeable to my mother in law. She was psychotic and viscious and insane and so verbally abusive my ex and verbally and physically abusive of her husbands and a lying. I didn't need to tell my wife about the short comings of her family. The drunkeness and drug addiction and perversion in the family was well known to her. If I wanted to honor her I'd celebrate the positives rather than hitting home the negatives. I was a real shit when I think back on that.  I was callous and judgemental and wish I could take it back. I wished I'd read the bible and been a better more forgiving person.
Love is not self seeking.  Well I was self seeking.  I can think about blow jobs and how I was wanting those and how it didn't matter how un fair her behaviour was given how much I pleasured her in the end I was completely self seekign sexually and while I thought I was doing what she wanted I really didn't discuss it or ask for honest feed back.  We didn't talk much and the last year or so there just wasn't any sex and later I was angry about the abortion.  That's the way I was and I look back and feel how poorly and unloving I was while I blamed her for being unloving. I actually thought I was loving when I really wasn't.  Not in the detail , not daily, lots of times but I was mostly focused on my work, worried for ever about this case or that case, trying desperately to keep somebody alive and not put nearly the time or energy into keeping my marriage alive.  I was a good doctor but a lousy husband.

I've got to go now but this is my Christmas season. Pretty sad and lots of self recrimination. It's the darkest time of the year and I seem to remember fondly the loveliest of women, those I left behind.  I'm no Rockwell portrait.  I wish that I read the Bible daily. I'm trying. I think if I was married I'd make it a must to read the whole list of First Corinthians 13 and keep it like a 'to do' list.
When I asked my father why he thought my marriage failed, he said he didn't know. He atttributed t he success of his marriage to what a good woman my mother was. When I pressed him though he said he'd noticed that I often got good things, but that I was not very good at doing the maintenance. It was a metaphor .  Oiling the car, cleaning my room. My father was always fixing things.  He was from an older more mature world. I'm from the consumer generation. We get something new and when it gets old we throw it away.
I threw away perfectly good women.
Mother Mary comes to me.