Folks, here is a Bible passage I've been invited to read aloud to the assembled congregation at tomorrow's Church service, and I felt I'd like to share with you beforehand. Now I think most of you know me well enough to realise it's not my intention to try and convert ANY of you to Christianity, but the more I look at the words ... the more I'm convinced there's a powerful message there for each and every one of us, religious and non~religious alike.

... "if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self~seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil - but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. ... but where there are prophecies ... they will cease; where there are tongues ... they will be stilled; where there is knowledge ... it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now, these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is LOVE!"