Love

The Bible has some good stuff in it. I Corinthians 13 is one of my favorites [NRSV except as noted]:

1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12  For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

The "through a glass, darkly" translation appeals to me though it is not found in various versions -- this one, e.g., used a different phrasing. Thus, I inserted it in! Seriously, I discuss the point here, including how one version uses "charity" for "love."  The letter has some bits that might be missed -- a sort of apocalyptic message ("the complete comes").

I know a couple who is choosing this time to try marriage again, after a first attempt that failed. The woman was married once before that! So, these two should forewarned by now, but good luck and wishes all the same. As Justice Douglas (married four times) once wrote:

Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. 

It is not always about love, but it helps.