Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole. PLATO, The Symposium
I came upon this quote online about an hour ago. (Thank You. Lord!) It struck me deeply because I have been grappling with trying to understand more about love, art, and ultimately God, for decades! Then here comes this quote, which I think is just the linchpin I've been looking for all these years!
Replacing the word "love" with art yields a wonderful insight about my making abstract art. What I mean is that when I paint I know when I'm finished because, looking at the canvas, I recognize the creative experience I was engaged in is complete - it's finished. I've never thought of using the word "whole" or wholeness, but that certainly is the concept I'm trying to express.
Taking out the word "love" and replacing it with "our desire for God" yields an even deeper truth: "Our desire for God is simply the desire and pursuit of the whole." Having come from God, we are indeed not complete, not whole, until we allow God into our lives. Or as Johnny Cash once put it, "Anyone who really wants the truth ends up with Jesus."
Putting all this together, what I get is that the passionate pursuit of anything - anything at all - relates to looking for the whole, the complete, the perfect - a metaphor for God in my book. Bottom line, whether we know it or not, whatever journey we are on, I think we are all after the same thing, or should I say the same person or reality - God. O the wonder!
