More about love..Love as a value/virtue.

[SocSci3 requirement naman.Under Ma'am Ivy Samala.Ü Ang tanong,"What are the values by which people should live?"]

VENTURA, Ivy Razel B. III-Potassium

Imagine

"So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of this is love."

Thus says 1Corinthians13:13—one of my favorite verses in the Holy Bible. It was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the question, "What are the values by which people should live?". As I was making this essay, some insisted that love is not a value. True, it’s not a value, it’s a virtue—a theological virtue, to be exact. But how do we define a virtue? According to my Values Education 1, virtues are habitual values. So, in essence, love is still a value, same goes with faith and hope.

Why love? Even the first time I heard this verses, it already touched me. Hence, I pondered the deeper meaning of these words. "And the greatest…is love". It’s been said that in a temporal perspective, love will remain even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession. And I came to realize that everything will be nothing if there is no love. But anything could mean everything with love. St. Paul once emphasized that "neither tongues, nor prophecy, knowledge, or faith, nor even self-sacrifice has value unless informed by love."

In my opinion, the only value by which people should live is love. Why? Simple, if you know how to love, all the other values will come out naturally. I believe that love is the core of all values. If there is only love right now, then the world will be peaceful. There won’t be political and economic crises, racial discrimination, tribal wars, moral degeneration, religious barriers, murder, rape, abortion, graft and corruption, illegal logging, alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, pornography, slavery, illiteracy and poverty anymore.

Yes, I may sound a bit of a fool for trying to advertise love as if it’s a commercially-available product. But you try to think of it, yourself. Imagine. What could the world be if everyone lives by the value of love? Me, I imagine mountains full of trees, clear oceans, fresher air to breathe, more animals, educational buildings instead of prison wards and rehabilitation centers, slum-free land, children in school instead of selling in the streets, children sniffing the scent of flowers instead of sniffing rugby, children drinking warm milk along with fresh chocolate cookies instead of taking alcohol and pulutan, teens reading educational or informative books instead of "triple X" magazines, men as industrious fathers instead of abusive ones, women as mothers of homes not whores of streets, people in harmony, unity…peace.

These things may sound impossible, even ridiculous. They could be. But then again. Think this second time. Is it really impossible? The answer resides in the depths of our hearts; it always did, waiting to be sought for. It’s just up to us to seek for it.

"If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (1Corinthians13:2-8)