G K Chesterton once said, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”
That one can actually be emotionally in love with God is noteworthy. Exciting…
but perhaps prone to being tempermental. Rather flighty. Downright fleeting on occassion.
Perhaps what Chesterton is suggesting is the need for a change of our attitudes, our motives—something more personal. The most personal it can be—a love affair.
But doesn’t it seems a bit presumptive to jump straight to love affair? That kind of closeness is the fruit of time spent together, the culmination of sacrifical acts of love.
Time and sacrifice happen with or without such emotion as is in a love affair.
So is it necessary or even good that one seek to make religion personal? Or will that religion, in an of itself, become personally meaningful in the doing?
I had a professor once say that the surest way for a poet to fail is to set out to write a love poem. He said, write about relationship, the acts, the images, and leave it to those who read your words say, “Ahh, it is a love poem!”
.
Ah… Beautiful.
Amen.
Maybe marriage would be a better metaphor or template. How often are we surprised by love here in both theory and practice?
Then again maybe it is like the difference believing honey is sweet and actually tasting it. Suddenly all the theory in the world makes no difference compared to the taste.
PS. Feels to shallow to me.
The idea of a comparing with a love affair is interesting but uncomfortable for me. Relationship with God is more serious to me than a love affair.