Creating a human for the sole purpose of torturing him eternally for not coming around to believing you created him isn’t Love, it’s psychopathy. Of course, it was even worse for Job, who had to experience God’s “love” while still alive.
Hell seems more like the kind of thing a human, who wouldn’t have to be very smart, is way more likely than an omniscient, omnipresent being to wish for, don’t you think? I’d like to believe, anyway, that if God were smarter than me, he’d be at least as nice as me. But, as it is made so very pathetically clear, I didn’t make the rules, I simply must follow them if I want dessert.
Alas, God is not love. Love is Love. Love is Love and nothing else is Love— not even our feeble attempts to capture it in stories, pictures, gestures, or games come close to having a hope of communicating the vastness and deepness of our inborn desire to create and perpetuate ourselves and our universe.
No story comes close, but when you feel Love, you know it. When you have love, you know it. And sometimes, when you don’t feel like you have it, a story can help remind you that Love is core to your being and will not ever — cannot ever — go anywhere without you. A song can change the course of your life; a kiss can warm you in the bleakest of circumstances; a photograph can bring back long forgotten memories in vivid detail. Being kind to that stranger may be all she needs to get through one day this week without crying. Not a prayer. Not a bible verse. Not the threat of damnation. Being kind.
Love is not a story we tell; Love is why we tell stories. Stories are a beautiful and important part of our humanity, but we mustn’t hold onto them too tightly. Our ancient texts should certainly be preserved, along with any progress we have made since whichever lightning strike first plagued us with consciousness, but antiquated beliefs and superstitious desires are not of the ilk that need to be treated with any particular reverence or authority not afforded the Iliad or Odyssey.
Although stories have the power to keep us moving and provide stepping stones into the future, they also have the power to hold us back. We can read our favorite love stories and listen to our favorite love songs so much that we convince our brains they are real — effectively disabling us from expereiencing Love firsthand, and cheating us out of the opporutnity to write the new stories and songs that will pave the way for our children to outsmart, outgrow, and outLove even our most vivid imaginations and highest aspirations.
Email me when Tommy publishes or recommends stories