“God is love,” we read in I John 4. I need to insist on the word “is.” Love is the essence, the very being, of God. I love and do not love, I like and do not like. I am human. What God is, is Love.
Bishop Michael Curry has a famous (and true!) saying: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” In a very deep way, your love for other people is also a reflection of this truth. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, spouses whom you love are also beloved of God. As are you. When the Book of Genesis says that we are created in the image of God, this is what it means.
To go more deeply, what God is, and whose image you are, is relations of love. At the heart of God is dynamic love: creating love, forgiving love, recreating love. Most people think the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is abstruse, difficult, irrelevant to our lives. I think it is simple: God is love. Nothing is more relevant than that. Obviously, coming to know the reality of God, like you know the reality of your own body, is impossible. But if God is love, and I love, and you love, there is the essential connection between the reality and the image that our love is. When we love, we are reflecting God.
People often talk about religion as something you have to believe (or else, all too often). No. Religion is something you live. Someone who loves without reservation is a real human, living…
