Is God Love? God is Love.

Looking back over the photographs I’ve taken, death seems to emerge as a theme, or perhaps just an obsession. I’m sure I’m not the only one who might feel it. Mystified. Considering walking, living, breathing, seeing; what’s up when it stops? You can answer, nothing, it all stops, etc. An answer, but we want more. This seems like a wall blocking understanding; a mystery.
Words fail. Are we self-conceiving or self creating? Or, were we formed by our interaction with others, environment, God? Gurdjieff said, somewhat facetiously, much was determined by the smell of the lozenge the midwife was sucking on when she delivered him. Regardless, we can’t conceive of not-being, and we’re likely to feel distress if we try.
“Is God Love? God is Love” is the most important of these photos to me. I spent a lot of time in that grave yard, with the chant of the crickets by day, and the grunts of the frogs by night. Most of the grave markers have no name on them, since, given time, it’s the spirit of life, not particulars, that could interest the living. These are memorials that are more real than grave stones. They’re not talking about sentimental love, they’re talking about something as ever present as light.
The detail view of the stone shows two crudely chiseled fishes on either side, swimming toward a heart in the middle. On the right corner is a hand, pointing down from above. It appears to be cut in with a simple pointed tool.
These are all Christian symbols, the fish, the hand of god. The heart is usually the sacred heart of Jesus. This is the message left, instead of a name. The names all disappear in the wind, anyway. The eyes that read this are in the same body as a beating heart.