Life, grace, love, nature

What is love? If I'm not the last person in line to ask this question....no, I am the last person to ask this question, because let's be honest, everybody has love creep into their life at some point whether it has grown from illegitimate lust, a simple romance or the superlative courtship between you, your mate and the Lord. Or, if you're lucky enough, you've committed yourself to the Holy Spirit for the rest of your life, a calling which demands the most, to say the very least. But the concept of love can be hard, nay, impossible to grasp if one eliminates God from the equation, because when it comes to love, God IS the equation. God is love, to put it simply. Infinite love, and from this love, all other love we experience in life can be expressed and experienced. Through infinite love we can love ourselves, love our best friends, love our family, love our spouse, each in a unique manner which has its own unique experience. But more than just this love of the infinity, this love of romance, of friendship and affection, all of which are of God and thus inherently good, what else is of God which ties into love, that which is inherently good? Life? Beauty? Truth? YES. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY. If one has watched the film The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, one would see these elements of life (duh) beauty, and love and how we experience, learn and grow in them by way of nature and grace. But first, what is beauty? As we now know, beauty is that which is good, that which involves life. So what is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is good. You don't have to be taught that flowers are beautiful, that a blue sky is beautiful, that love is beautiful, we see this and in an almost inexplicable way, we feel the beauty, and understand it. The same can be said of life. Murder is wrong, I don't think anybody would argue that. But let's take that a few steps further. Bodily harm is also wrong, and is illegal, because one infringes on the right to life. But this isn't limited to physical harm, it also relates to emotional harm. Verbal abuse, which involves unkind words, and not just active verbal communication, but a lack thereof. In a less direct manner, one could even make the case that the absence of a kind act when a situation calls for a kind act does in fact harm someone, it contributes to the same act which is against life itself. Okay, so we seem to agree that life is good, and I don't think any living thing would object, although one could argue that suicides occur because people may rationalize that not existing would be better than existing, having such a lame existence. Now, assuming one does NOT believe in an afterlife, to say it would be better to not exist is a a huge assumption, but the philosophical implications of delving into theses ideas are complicated enough for its own blog, book, possibly library. Now back to The Tree (of Life) How do nature and grace it into the elements of life and beauty? Well, grace is an supernatural gift we receive, one which transcends the natural, and nature is what influences us in the natural world. How is this pertinent to us though? The main character in this film is raised by parents who are essentially caricatures that are the embodiment of one, nature, and the other, grace. Both parents love, but in stark contrast to each other, and thus a very different expression as such. But as the boy says (in voice-over, rather dream-like state) "mother, father, you wrestle inside me" Does this sound familiar? IT SHOULD BE. The conscience is constantly inhibiting the (bad) natural desires and actions which we want to act upon, and depending on the grace one has at any given time, those (bad) natural desires may come out. Of course, people will use logic to determine that nature itself is inherently good, and thus any natural desire should be acted upon, but if somebody truly lived by such a standard, they would probably have been jailed a long time ago. That's why we have laws. Laws come from grace, they are based in the idea that natural urges should be inhibited for the continuation of LIFE, and to prevent harm upon others. And thus, grace must be present with nature, grace and nature are distinct but inseparable. It may seem counter-intuitive, to inhibit nature to facilitate life, because when we think of nature, we think of life. But grace is of God, the Holy Spirit. God created life and nature; God, the infinite love, grace and mercy which we indulge in continually.