There is a table set for two people, and love is the guest who does not reach for his own plate first. The verse puts patience and kindness at the head of that table, then lists envy, bragging, pride, the spark of being provoked, and sets the quiet center among them: love doesn't seek its own way. The plate is within reach, and the hand goes to the space of the other.

Here is my confession: I have often turned my own way into a virtuous rule and called it foresight or stability. I am patient only until the schedule runs against mine; then I feel the heat that the verse calls provoked, and my gifted memory starts taking account of evil, the very book the verse says to close. The verse sees it all and still says the same one thing: love doesn't seek its own way.

This verse must find its place in a person before it can come to me as a command. In the garden, Christ asked for the way out, and then he did not take it. He did not seek his own way; the cross is the proof. The resurrection is the table set again: the Father received the Son who surrendered his own claim, and the Spirit sets the risen Christ at the head of the supper. The meal is not a demand waiting to be performed; it is a grace already laid in front of us.