---
title: Love as God
id: love-as-god
genre: verse

project:
    title: Stark Raving
    class: stark
    order: 13
    next:
    - title: Worse looking over
      link: worse-looking-over
    - title: L'appel du vide
      link: lappel-du-vide
    prev:
    - title: Initial conditions
      link: initial-conditions
    - title: Ouroboros of memory
      link: ouroboros_memory
...

[God is love][], they say, but there [is][] \
no god.  Therefore, how can there be love?  \
And if there is no love, how can there be God?  \
There are things in life, I suppose, \
that are simply unanswerable mysteries \
of existence.  Maybe this God and love are one.

Maybe there are many loves, instead of one.  \
The difference between [what isn't][] and what is \
could merely be one of scope.  The mystery \
is how we speak only of one love--- \
to act as though we know we are supposed \
to love only one other, or that one other and God.

But supposing that one other is God?  \
What then?  Is the God-lover to walk alone, \
supported by God only when He feels He is supposed \
to support her?  What kind of love is \
this?  I would argue in fact this isn't love, \
this [one-set-of-footprints-in-the-sand][] mystery.

How to define two loves as one is the mystery.  \
It's obvious to many there is a thing called God, \
and just as obvious that there is one called love.  \
Maybe we fool ourselves, we who can't be alone; \
maybe we don't know what either God or love is.  \
Maybe, and perhaps; but I for one propose

that we as only humans are not supposed \
to know or understand capital-L Life, that mystery.  \
Isn't it enough to know that God is  \
love, and love is God,  \
no matter which one \
does or does not exist?  What is life, if no love,

if no God?  [Maybe][Maybe1] this saying, "God is love," \
is less a definition of God what what love is supposed \
to be.  Of these two terms, [maybe2][] the one \
we should capitalize is Love, that great mystery \
of chemistry and longing.  Maybe "Love is god" \
is a more fitting [epigraph][] for what life is

[made of:][made of] Love, that most delicate, most misty \

of all emotions, is supposed to be their god, \
as the one that binds us, that was, that will be, that is.

[is]: i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.html
[God is love]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A8&version=NIV
[what isn't]: largest-asteroid.html
[one-set-of-footprints-in-the-sand]: http://www.footprints-inthe-sand.com/index.php?page=Poem/Poem.php
[Maybe1]: cereal.html
[maybe2]: death-zone.html
[epigraph]: epigraph.html
[made of]: tapestry.html