Love Is My Religion

Ziggy Marley and his brother David's video Love Is My Religion is on the album that won best Reggae album at the Grammy's. Hollywood has always been far more secular than the general population. But this song... this is kind of the stuff that influences people. Spirituality without religion isn't a new concept, but for our youth, and our country's Hollywood dependent culture, it is.

After watching the video, I wonder, is the concept of love "better" when it's through an organized religion? Is it something different when it's felt, and practiced, by someone who isn't saved? If love is what God is made of, does he really care whether we belong to a religious group or not, so long as we are loving? And what's worse then, in God's proverbial eyes - one who is not religious, but loves deeply the people and world around him, or one who "believes" but doesn't love anything but himself and his God?

If there is indeed some kind of judgement after I die, I'm confident that if God is good, he won't tie salvation to whether I believed in him. If there is a God, who judges, and he judges based on faith, then that kind of shallow God is not an entity I'd want to serve anyway.

Love, that's what it's all about. Whatever it takes to arrive at universal love, and deep caring for the suffering and happiness of the people around us, is fine by me. But as soon as some kind of black and white rules area slapped down on how we are supposed to arrive at love, and if we don't use THAT ONE path to arrive at love it's as if we don't love at all, it's like we're closing our eyes, and loving only the things that we think are good. What's the point of that kind of love?

Just as in life, black and white is easier to manage, easier to judge. But the truth is, life, and death, and I'm guessing the afterlife if there is any, is grey. Grey, grey and more grey. There is no black and white, except for what we want there to be, and expect there to be.

Even in love. It's all grey. I just love as much as I can, with all my heart. Ziggy Marley had it right - love is the best.