Why love God?

It's too easy to say "Love God" and have it go "Whoosh!" over people's
heads.  *Why* love God?  Who is God?  Isn't God the one who supposedly
authored a world where murder, rape, war, torture, cruelty, ignorance,
bigotry, hypocrisy, and close-mindedness run rampant?

You can say, "But God created the good things too," and run into roadblocks
that point back to the murder, war, etc.

But consider the stars.

Consider the tapestry of the sky --- the sky out in the country on a
clear night with no moon, far away from the city --- with the
glittering bits of light scattered across the deep dark expanse, like
diamond-dust.  Something in us is in awe of that sky, of that glowing
spectacle, of that beauty.  That same awe can speak to us from a flat
painting --- into which the artist has poured her time and energy and
heart and mind.  Graceful lines and subtle colors work together in a
visual harmony, evoking emotions and awe and reverence.

Beauty.

Consider mathematics.  Consider the way numbers fit together.
Consider the little tricks one can play in different numeric bases.
Consider the elegance of Calculus, the smooth cycle of sine to cosine,
cosine to sine, the space under the curve, the sudden dash up to ---
to infinity.  Consider infinity --- or the many infinities.  What an
amazing concept!  The distant limits of numbers, never reachable, not
imaginable, yet concrete, conceivable, usable, useful!  More --- more!
Consider how so much of math can be proved --- yes, proved!  It's
real.  No one can touch a number, but we know it exists, we know one
and one make two.  All this is part of truth, part of reality.

Consider the universe.  From quark to supercluster, governed by
elegant and sometimes paradoxical laws, equations, concepts; beautiful
concepts of symmetry and asymmetry, of order and chaos, predictability
and confusion, provable theorems and assumptions with no proof.  Oh,
glorious science!  The pursuit of reality, of truth; the eternal
search for the answers to the question: Why?

But consider also the laws that govern humans.  Fairness, kindness,
honesty --- often violated, but still respected, still acknowledged
somehow as truth.  Deep within, we know these laws; we know not to cheat
our neighbors, we know not to steal, we know not to murder.  Deep inside,
we know that we should help each other.

Truth, of a different kind.  Yet, a truth that is melded into the
truth of math, the truth of physics --- separate in most people's
eyes, but does not math tie into physics?  Does not physics make
chemistry?  Does not chemistry affect biology?  Does not biology
affect human behavior?  You cannot truly separate them, ever.

Truth!  All tied together.  One single truth, like a shining path
that some call the Tao.

And consider the good in society.  Those who threw off the burden of
respectability and who dared to help others when it wasn't necessary.
The guy who stopped traffic to rescue ducklings.  The woman who dared
to risk her own health for a child.  Even the orca that brought food
to a listless newcomer.  Consider the sacrifice of those who died for
their friends, their children, their country, their ideals, their God,
and even for complete strangers --- believers in a vision of something
larger than themselves!  Or those who suffered and worked a little
every day --- for the poor, the hungry, the angry, the criminal, the
lost, the grieving.  Days upon days of work, sometimes rewarded,
sometimes not.

Dedication to doing the right thing.  Caring.  Working.  Striving.
Helping.

Love!

Love of others!  Love of Truth!  Love of Beauty!  Love of ... Love!

God.  That is my God.

That is my God: Beauty, and Truth, and Love.  The God of
star-sprinkled skies, the God of calculus, the God of real people
doing real things to help others.  Do you see the beauty in all of
those?  Can you tie those threads of beauty together, and see them as
strands of the same cloth?  Do you see Truth in all of these?  Can you
see how all those aspects of Truth are but parts of a whole?  Do you
see how Love filters all of these, in a very personal way, tying them
all together within a framework of awe?

Glorious Truth!  Sublime Truth!  Beautiful Truth!  Living Truth!  
Manifestations of a God too astounding, too magnificent, too terribly
infinite for words to adequately convey.

Whatever is God's name: truth, beauty, love, "the Source of the Tao,"
"Father," "the Trinity," Jesus --- worthy of adoration, worthy of awe,
worthy of worship!

That is my God!