I want things to be fair and kind. The counter voice admonishes and reminds me, life isn’t fair. Indeed, life isn’t but the aspiration, nay the commandment is to LOVE. And love is fair. God so loved the world that He sent his only son. He (note capital H) came into this world as a human, experienced the spectrum of humanity and suffered at those hateful, selfish, petty, evil hands and yet, loved us. And commanded us to LOVE one another.
Life is nature. Life is cruel. Nature is brutal. Full of predation. Migration. Hibernation. Reproduction. Decomposition. It is a cycle driven by DNA with the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Even the mountains dance and the rivers sing. All of life on this tiny blue marble in the vastness of the galaxies is compelled to cycle through death and rebirth. But a jaguar doesn’t make a choice to become vegan. A salmon cannot elect to stay at sea, distancing themselves from the run up river. Nope, they’re wired to reproduce, to procreate, to survive.
Only humans have free will. Free. Will. Other creatures and living things are hard coded. Their DNA drives them. But they are not masters of destiny. Humans alone were granted free will. A will of our own. Women, unlike all other female mammals, have menstruation and not estrus. Our reproductive cycles occur but do not drive us. Humans are blessed with the elevated position to be the stewards of Paradise. And our Free Will fucked that up. And yet, He gave it to us(that free will thing). What a curious Architect and Inventor. He asked for only one thing: Love. First, love me above all other gods. Second love each other. Simple, right?
But we are so petty. And selfish. And self-important. And distracted. And disrespectful. And hateful. And indifferent. And yet, He loved us. Why? Because love is unconditional. It is not earned or awarded or accumulated. It is such a paradox. It is both abundant and fleeting. In a nanosecond, we can be engulfed in a love that feels boundless and eternal. And in the next nanosecond, the void can feel equally infinite. Why? Because we aren’t trying hard enough. To love. His love is abundant and we could mirror it, mimic it, attempt and aspire. But we are petty and piteous. We act like the animals when we are more than animals. What underachievers we have become. We’ve settled for the scratch and scrabble of a cycle of life like any other critter on the planet when we were meant for more. I do not mean more in the context of extraction and consumption but in the context of love and caring. Life on this planet hinges on a razor’s edge between scarcity and threat but we have the capacity for abundance and fruitfulness. There is a balance. It has been offered. The instruction manual was simple. Step one: love me, your God above all other gods (in the vein of Neil Gaiman). Step 2: love each other.
What an odd creation: love. It is a surprising and illogical thing. There was protection. Defense. Down to a cellular immunity. Creation had mechanisms to exist and survive. Love isn’t and has never been necessary. So, what’s that all about? Love. It is a divine gift. A glimpse into Heaven or Nirvana or Eternity. Love. And existence without love is a hellscape – literally. Read your instruction manual. Step 1: LOVE.
