Hamlet's "To be or not," God as a Verb, Love as a Verb

Hamlet asks, “To be or not”? (3.1.64) [1]

Moses asks God’s name, and God says,
“I am who am” (Exodus 3:14),
or, I am "to be" and "always to have been."
I am a verb.

In 1968, R. Buckminster Fuller wrote a poem in which God is a verb, and in the 13th Century, “Thomas Aquinas wrote that God is ‘ipsum esse subsistens,’ translated by Bishop Robert Barron as "the shear act of 'to be' itself"; Sufi poets and Taoist thinkers have similar concepts. [2]

Some love songs (like this one below, "Something that we do") similarly challenge the idea that love is merely a feeling or noun one falls into or out of, and assert instead that love is a verb.

In the song below, notice how nicely the structure of the lyrics unfold, elucidating the idea, with the first two lines of verse 3.b repeating the first two lines of v.1.a.

V.1.a.
I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
I still believe the words we said
Forever will ring true

1.b.
Love is certain, love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isn't something that we find
It's something that we do

V.2.a.
It's holding tight and It's letting go
It's flying high and laying low
You let your strongest feelings show
And your weakness too

2.b.
It's a little and a lot to ask
An endless and a welcome task
Love isn't something that we have
It's something that we do

REFRAIN:
We help to make each other all that we can be
We can find our strength and inspiration independently
The way we work together is what sets our love apart
So closely that we can't tell where I end and where you start

V.3.a.
Love is blind and love is long
Love is deep and love is strong
Love is why I love this song
I hope you love it too

V.3.b.
I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
Love isn't just those words we said
It's something that we do

BRIDGE:
There's no request too big or small
We give ourselves, we give our all
Love isn't some place that we fall
It's something that we do

- Early 2000's, Songwriters: C. Black, H. Nichols
[Link to song at the blog.]


Michael Johnson performs another song on a similar theme by Thom Bishop: Each verse ends,

“Don’t look for love; love looks for you.”

The refrain Thom Bishop's song claims,
And it will leave you standing stranded like an outlaw
It will make you wild and wasted on its trail
And it will leave you riled and restless
as you stumble through the night.
It will throw away the key the day it locks you in its jail [3]

In a similar way, Shakespeare’s Geneva Bible (John 15:16) announces: We did not choose God; God chose us.

Don’t look for love, love looks for you.
(And love, again, is a verb).

My wish for you all this new year:
May love be, for you, a verb:
May may love find you, again and again,
and like Hamlet, may you choose "to be" that verb as well.

https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/12/hamlets-to-be-or-not-god-and-love-as.html
~~~

NOTES:
[1] All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version:
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16761247

[3] https://youtu.be/yYKHNqsLLdU?t=5217


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Thanks for reading!
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):

https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

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