Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; "Cogito ergo sum" - "I think therefore I am"? Nonsense. "Amo ergo sum" - "I love therefore I am." Or, as with unconscious eloquence St. Paul wrote, "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
I believe that. I believe it is better not to live than not to love.*
Of God's love we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God's love doesn't seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.**
Because our value is a gift, we don't have to prove ourselves, only to express ourselves, and what a world of difference there is between proving ourselves and expressing ourselves.***
We don't have to be "successful," only valuable. We don't have to make money, only a difference, and particularly in the lives society counts least and puts last.****
*page 5; **page 6; ***page 6, ****page 7
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