Corinthians 2.0

It’s time to give wedding readers some new material

I just attended another wedding last weekend, and for the third time this summer, I got to hear everyone’s favorite New Testament riff on love, Corinthians. Corinthians is such a wedding-reading cliché that in Wedding Crashers, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson placed a bet on whether it would be read at a given wedding (it was). I’m not saying Corinthians is bad. It’s just a little played out, and I’m sure many future brides and grooms wouldn’t mind an alternative. Here, then, I give you a modernized Corinthians to use at your wedding. Please remember to send me royalties.

What is love? That’s a fantastic question, and one that has baffled the great thinkers throughout antiquity, from Haddaway to Tina Turner (who, recognizing love’s ultimately unknowable nature, mused not on love itself but on its relation to human existence in its totality—i.e., what’s love got to do with it?). Well, we’re gonna tell you.

Love does not get on the bumper of the car in front of it when two lanes merge into one, because love is not a jerk. Love does not buy scratch tickets and then throw the losing tickets on the sidewalk outside the store, thus tempting passersby to pick up those tickets and check to make sure that they really didn’t win, because love is not a litterbug. Love is long-suffering, like a man who mistakenly Weedwacks poison ivy in the nude. Love is kind—but kind of what? We don’t know, because love is mysterious.

Love does not boast. Really, if love were sitting behind home plate at the Red Sox game, love wouldn’t call everyone love knows and wave whenever the TV camera was zoomed in on a left-handed batter. Which brings us to another truth: Love is not an annoying person that you wish you could drag through your TV screen and punch in the face.

Love is not inflated, so maybe you should pump it up. Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame, darlin’, you give love a bad name. And by “you,” we mean Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.

Love is not discourteous. Which is to say it is courteous. But love doesn’t dislike using double negatives. Love is trusting, like the security guards at Home Depot, who never really look in your bag on the way out, even when you use self-checkout. And they’re right. Many a time I could’ve helped myself to a few extra grommets, but I did not.

Love is not Legal Sea Foods, nor Red Lobster nor even Jimmy’s Harborside, for love does not sell fish. What? Oh, that makes more sense. Love is not selfish.

It is not irritable, so stop asking. It can’t guarantee not to make you sick like bad dim sum. Remember, fish don’t swim upside down. Love is not pretentious. It does not look at your pants from Armani Exchange and ask, “Why bother?”

Like Carnie Wilson’s underwear, love covers all things. If it weren’t for love, what would you get tattooed on your knuckles when one side already says “hate”? You could go with “joy,” I suppose, but then your pinkie’s just hanging out looking stupid.

Love does not attend the roast of Pamela Anderson and try to steal the show by flashing its boobs and acting like a complete freak show. That’s Courtney Love you’re thinking of.

You know what I’d love right now? A grilled cheese sandwich.

In the Hawaiian language, there are 19 different words for love but not one for “thesaurus.” So actually, there might be even more words for love, but they have no way of knowing.

Love is smart, for love does not argue that the giant cell-phone tower along Route 2 that’s disguised to look like a tree is, in fact, a giant, square tree that happens to be about 100 feet taller than the surrounding foliage. I’m not naming names, but I think we know who we are on this one, and I think I’m still owed 10 bucks from that particular bet.

When two people stay by each other’s side for years and years, that right there is love. Or they might be conjoined twins. Either way, I’m impressed!

Love is good, love is great, so gimme some more love on my plate. Now let’s vow it up so you two crazy kids can legitimize all that sex you’ve been having.