Winding away from my cul-de-sac, beyond landscaped lawns and sidewalks onto the muddy, overgrown path of the forest, I scanned along mossy limestone outcroppings, remnants of a glacial past, for a resting spot. Nestling into the scooped root bed of a mature tree, I felt the strong, rough trunk firm behind my back.

I tilted my head back and opened my eyes to the dizzying sway of naked branches creaking under swiftly skimming clouds. I sunk into the leaf-covered ground, thankful for the winter partition this sunny day offered. Connected and grounded, I felt the energy of the tree enter through my back, filling my body with its signature current.

I’m halfway into my luxe birthday gift, a hot stone massage, when Alexis squeezes my calf so hard I bite my lip. She lets up just as I’m just about to wave a white flag, and my leg feels amazing. Energy courses the length of my muscles.

In the midst of enjoying this flow, my head suddenly bursts with a visual of my whole life mapped as a swirling spiral. I see the paths of professions, personal relationships, education, travel, personal pursuits, stirring, seemingly unrelated, like stars in a galaxy, until they converge on a central point of uncompromised clarity and harmony, before swirling out again.

Sh*t. The horizon line I take for granted is gone. 

Panic rolls in with the waves that toss me. The boat deck sways in an arcing smile that I’m thoroughly convinced is mocking my fear. A forgotten snorkel hangs along my cheek as brine fills my mouth. Nothing in my freshwater training prepared me for the open ocean’s forcefulness.

God is love. Growing up, I heard this over and over, and was never particularly moved. Until it hit me very recently that I was not applying proper sentence structure. I had always processed this truism as, “God is loving.” 

Love, though, is a noun, not a tacked-on adjective. In fact, it’s a power noun, a predicate nominative equal in stature to the subject. God is love. Love is God. 

Love is God. Accept this, and suddenly God transforms from a cloud-hopping, hierarchical being to an energy force that beams through us, magnified in our actions and broadcast by the recipients of our love. If love is God, perhaps we are too immersed in the divine to see it clearly.