“Faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”  I Corinthians 13:13

There are no more beautiful and few better-known passages in scripture than this one. The culmination of the ultimate description of Christ-like love, Paul draws into a nutshell the list of things that really matter, the things that matter most whether or not we possess and demonstrate. Excelling in each of these virtues is a real challenge; in fact, few can boast of excelling in any of the three, let alone a simultaneous trio. Experience has taught me that it is much easier to see and feel the absence over the presence of the crown jewels. No faith in God, self, or others. No hope, especially in circumstances beyond our control. No love to mark the tenor and tone of our human interactions. That picture is easy to see, even when the view is in the mirror.