Many years ago, an old friend, a Catholic nun from Australia, told me the story of how she was asked by a man whom she had just met questions like these: How do you know there’s a God? Have you experienced God? What is God? Who? and Where?
If you were asked these questions, what would you say? To where, what, or whom would you point?
She asked him, have you experienced love? Yes, he said. Then you’ve experienced God.
Answering all his questions was as simple for her as pointing to love.
She continued, where else would God be but love? What else would God be? What else would the experience of God be but love? In what else would you trust? Who else?
I considered my own and others’ experiences.
Like my mother (see her story on the home page), when I’ve needed and felt caregiving, I’ve assumed those who cared for me were participating in God’s care. When I actively love, I can feel I’m participating in God’s work, God’s life. In my love relationships, when the people who love me hold onto visions of me as my best self, see me as worthy of love even as they see the whole of me, I imagine I’m being seen the way our loving God sees us, delights in us all with eyes of love. Doesn’t being loved like that help us to bring out more of what is good in us, even help us to be more loving? Don’t we feel more whole, perhaps even like we are healing, when we are loved and when we love?
Would we ever say love cannot be of God?
Experientially, I can’t distinguish between God and love. That’s why I refer to Love when I speak of the ultimate Mystery.
Can you distinguish between Love and love? Let me know in an email.
Tim Kochems
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