The only answer I can give that would do justice to God is simply: Love. Muslims say that if you want to see the face of God, turn around.

I turn and I see a world full of hatred and suffering and oppression. I see a world full of love and joy and hope. I see people doing terrible things to each other out of ignorance and apathy, and I see people doing extraordinary things for one another out of courage and selflessness. I feel God's call to me, the call to end hatred and share love and peace.

Love is the answer. Love is the only answer. God loves us even when we are not worth loving. God loves us because we seem not worth loving. Because the call to love is not easy, nor trite, nor simple. Love is the hardest thing we will ever have to do.

I feel drained and angry when I have to defend my beliefs to people. I hate myself for thinking that other people are so stupid, so ignorant, so unkind, so self-obsessed that they could never deserve God's love. But they do. You do. I see God in you, and I see Christ in you. I see my own weakness, my own willingness to see you crucified simply because I don't like you. That is why I am so in awe of God. God chooses to love us, you and me, and everyone else, not because we deserve it but because that is God's very nature.

That is the Gospel, the Good News of Great Joy. God loves us and will not forsake us, even though we forsake ourselves, even though we forsake each other. Even though we forsake God. There is no proof, no evidence. There is no scientific formula. There is just love.

Would it be totally neanderthalic of me to opine that the women of Salon all seem to be unusually attractive?

Still, my meninist heart!