God is Love

Love is perhaps life’s greatest mystery.  Where does it come from?  How do we participate in it?  Why does it sometimes fail?  What does it have to do with feelings?  Mysteries are important because they point us toward God. 

I do not know the answer to any of these enduring questions about love.  I do know that I was surrounded by it last weekend.  And I am convinced that there is no greater pointer to God than human love.

I once heard someone say that parents love their children not so that their children will love them, but so that their children will love their children.  I might add to that “and others.”  And last weekend I saw all my dreams as Andrew’s dad come true as he married Jessica, whom he clearly loves.  One day, should they choose and God will, they will be wonderful parents.  In the meantime, they will be building a life together. 

An old friend called last week about marrying his long-time partner in New York.  It is something he sadly cannot do in Georgia.  I helped just a little in facilitating that.  In like manner, couples flocked to city halls in California to make lifelong commitments to one another in light of the Supreme Court’s rulings last week.  It makes me happy that my son’s marriage is starting in a world in which marriage is less and less the privilege of some to the exclusion of others, so different from the world in which his mother and I were married 34 years ago.  Far from detracting from his marriage, it makes it even more complete for when justice is denied to some, it is denied to us all.  Justice, like love, made itself better known this weekend, and that also is of God.  But most importantly, witnessing justice come to be was also a glimpse of love prevailing against its adversaries, the kingdom of God drawing near. 

This weekend was not only a celebration of the love of husbands and of wives.  I was at least as aware of the love that surrounded all of this weekend, family and friends who made the journey because they loved us, and others who could not be there in person but held us in prayer.  It was, once again, a glimpse of the kingdom in a celebration of human love.

I do not know the answers to the mysteries of love, but I’m pretty sure that God stands behind them and that the more we live into the mystery, the more God is known.  Love, I think, begins and ends in God.  The more unconditional it is, the closer God is and the more easily seen.  John the Evangelist put it this way:  “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn. 4:12).  It is as if God is the sun and we are the moon, reflecting, even dimly, God’s brilliant love, which is the origin of our own.  Our love, in the end, is not about us at all.  It is all about God. 

This was a weekend of experiencing that for me.  I am very grateful.

Peace,
+Stacy