God is love
And everything else
If there were anything else
The classic formulation of “God is love” is attractive to many people of good will; perhaps, because of its implicit assertion of nurturing life as a primary characteristic of reality, and of its tension with much of religion’s failings in human history in regards to its parochial quests for power, status, and control. Nonetheless, in our post-modern world, there is much disagreement over the theology, philosophy, and worldview related to theism and the nature of ultimate reality. Many question whether there is a God transcendent, “separate” from creation [God and everything else]. These arguments are very dry and often harsh, in contrast to love. Personally, I find such arguments intellectually interesting but a poor meal for my hungry heart. In this short poem, I play with the ideas of theism, leaving them unresolved, unsolved…and yet, love stands — and my heart cheers! Poetry is both an art and a science, provoking beautiful methods to our madness, soothing our savageness without spoiling our untamed hearts. I consider writing poetry as the mind making love with the heart — two faculties united in producing a mystical yet palpable world. As Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.” May your reason serve love, and when you come to the end of reason, may you find love there waiting for you.
