Prologue:
I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time. The first time I can remember that someone asked me what do I believe, I honestly didn’t know the answer. Sure, I could have recited some verse or creed from my Lutheran childhood, but I know that was not an entirely accurate portrait of my beliefs. That was some 20 years ago.
Since then, I’ve been married, divorced, remarried and become the father of two wonderful boys. In that series of events, I found what I believe. Quite simply, love is god. The hard part is trying to fully explain what I mean. On one hand, I have to ask you to abandon your thoughts of a traditional “religion.” On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to explain any religion without the context of a traditional deity.
Discussion One: Language
First off, I’d like to explain the syntactic difference between “God is love” and “love is god.” To say that “God is love,” merely assigns love as an attribute to God as we are expected to know and understand God. However, to say that “love is god” assigns the role of deity to a known concept, i.e., Love. They are the same three words, but arranged to achieve a different meaning and to convey a meaning that belies that true complexities of both god and love.
It is easy enough to define god, the generic noun. A god is a deity identified by a religion. In the Christian view, there is one god that is typically characterized as omniscient and omnipresent. Vernacular representations of this god would have us believe that it is a judgmental male of great antiquity and even greater powers. I cannot authoritatively speak of many other religious views of god except to say that some religions are pantheistic and most gods and goddesses are recognized as some form of man or animal.
In contrast, I believe that love is god and as such, I choose to render god as an intangible, incomprehensible, amorphous or perhaps polymorphous deity that is without a face, gender, color or age. To define love in terms of matter, love is a colorless, odorless gas. I suppose it’s possible that worshiping a god that has a face or is in the image of something recognizable is easier; easier in that you can have a relationship with a being that you can imagine to have a face. Maybe. I agree that the notion of gas worship reeks of a cartoon; namely Ren and Stimpy. However, I believe that love must be that pure in order to be god. Love, and god for that matter, should be understood and appear without any prejudice. For example, to reference god as “lord,” sounds downright feudal and while I certainly understand the role of serfdom in our relationship with any deity, the word “lord” brings a level of prejudice against both the deity and the worshipers that I’m not willing to accept.
And, with that I’d like to digress for a moment and recognize that these are solely my beliefs. I do not expect you to agree with me or disagree with me. Truth be known, your level of concurrence with my beliefs is as much your right as is it my right to hold these beliefs and therefore, concurrence is a moot point. With that, I think this might be a decent stopping point. Next time, I’ll take a break from the language of beliefs and try to wade into the meanings of what I believe.
