(no subject)

[hummingwolf]

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
--John 15:13, King James version.

A thought earlier: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man give his friends what they need even though it conflict with what he deeply desire to give.

Which probably comes to the same thing in the end.



(P.S.--subjunctive mood sounds weird. Am sure I got it wrong too.)

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

yeah, i think i tried to write a sentence that meant something like that a while ago. subjunctives *are* hard to manage!

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

You know a grammatical feature is dying out when native speakers of the language think it sounds weird and can't quite figure out how to use it anyway.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

you are so right! i usually finesse it with 'may' or 'might,' depending on tense. unless i ignore it. ;)

an easy one would be, e.g., "i prefer that he not go...", and 'were' is easy when we use 'if.'

but on the whole, it's a losing battle in english.

the litmus test

[icdedpeople.livejournal.com]

well said. :)

greater love

[icdedpeople.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether or not subjunctive mood extends to every verb in the clause. It does make one sound like Mr. Miyagi.

I think Scott Peck would say that both sentences are meant to convey the same thing. His version would be:
"Greater love has no one than this: that one extends his personal boundaries for another's spiritual growth." His approach related such an act to a kind of dying.

Re: greater love

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Am pretty sure I should've typed "desireth," but not quite sure enough to edit the post that way.

One of these days I need to read and/or re-read some Scott Peck, but to be honest, suggesting one extending one's "personal boundaries for another's spiritual growth" isn't the sort of thing that inspires me to change my actions. Just about anything you do can be described in terms of extending personal boundaries for another's spiritual growth if you've got enough imagination and are determined to justify it. The big advantage of Jesus' words is that pretty much everybody can understand them, understand that he's talking about a major, painful self-sacrifice. The advantage (for me) of my wording is that, while I don't expect to have any need to die for another in the near future, taking on a role that conflicts with the role I want to have is something that applies to my life right now.

Re: greater love

[icdedpeople.livejournal.com]

Does your wording mean 'what she deeply desires to give to her friends'?

Re: greater love

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

That's part of it, yes, though there's a "he" or two I have in mind as well.