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!